Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Urban Aid

Mr. Anthony Grant: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the will make a statement about the future of the urban aid programme.

Mr. Eyre: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the urban aid programme.

Mr. Steen: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the urban aid programme.

Mr. Baker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the urban aid programme.

Sir W. Elliott: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the urban aid programme.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John): There is public expenditure provision for continuing grantaid on existing urban programme projects and on some limited amounts of new expenditure.

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that when Questions are grouped together, I call first of all those Members whose Questions are being answered.

Mr. Grant: Is the Minister aware that no matter how he or the Government juggle the figures, the plain fact is that aid for urban areas is cut in real terms?

Is he aware that his deplorable answer goes against everything that the Government have been saying over the last two years about these matters? Do the Government now really care a hoot about the grave problems of our cities?

Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman speaks with great heat, but as usual he succeeds in throwing very little light on the subject. All of us recognise—not least, I should have thought, Opposition Members—the grave limitations on public expenditure at present. There is a Ministerial Committee, under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, one of whose tasks is to examine the future of urban aid. We recognise its importance, but the constraints on public expenditure mean that careful consideration must be given to the nature and type of aid and the areas to which it is devoted.

Mr. Eyre: Does the Minister realise that the first requirement is that the Government should speak truthfully about the catastrophic situation now developing in large towns and cities as a consequence of the failure of the Government's economic policy? Will he acknowledge that in talking of the problems of the inner areas it is also necessary to take account of the situation in the outer wards of large towns and cities? Because of the transfer of population and other factors, many of the problems spill over into those areas. Will the Minister assure the House that the working group will take account of that development?

Mr. John: If the hon. Gentleman imagines that the problems of inner cities have arisen only in the last three years he is grossly mistaken, and shows a complete lack of understanding not only of the problem in general but of its application to his own city of Birmingham. No one pretends that problems of deprivation are geographically linked, to the exclusion of all other areas. What the Committee is considering is the problem of the inner cities and the problems of all other deprived areas, and it is trying to devise a future for the programme which takes account of the problems and of our resources, and best fashions future policy to deal with the problems.

Mr. Steen: Will the Minister persuade local authorities not to take the lion's


share of the urban aid programme but to look more sympathetically upon the voluntary organisations and community groups in urban areas which are being deprived of urban aid funds because local authorities are putting their own requests first? If he cannot do that, will he persuade the Voluntary Service Unit to give some of its £1 million that has been unspent this year to small local community groups and not go on financing national voluntary organisations?

Mr. John: No doubt at a suitable time the hon. Gentleman, speaking on behalf of national voluntary organisations, will explain to the Government why the Voluntary Service Unit ought to spend some of its money for their purposes. We believe that local initiative and a local sieving process, such as local authorities give, is necessary to see what projects should be supported in an area. I am not unmindful, nor am I critical, of the work of the voluntary organisations in this effort. In fact, they get about one-third of the total number of projects under urban aid. Voluntary efforts form a very great and useful part of the urban aid programme.

Mr. Baker: There are many areas of great social deprivation in inner London in which unemployment is now as high as it is on Tyneside and Merseyside. Will the Minister ensure that a proper coordination exists between his Department, the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Employment to deal with these problems? Interdepartmental committees of civil servants of junior Ministers are not adequate to deal with them.

Mr. John: Co-ordination is vital, as the hon. Gentleman says. He will know, from his experience in Government, of the departmental problems that exist and that need to be minimised, where that is possible. He certainly does not need to urge upon me an awareness of the scale of problems in the inner cities. It is perhaps the scale of the problems rather than the nature of the deprivation that marks out the inner cities from other deprived areas in Britain.

Mr. George Rodgers: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is difficult to define urban areas and that many of the older and smaller towns, particularly in Lancashire,

need assistance just as much as the major cities?

Mr. John: As I tried to say earlier, I accept that a purely geographical concept of deprivation does not assist us greatly in tackling these problems. That is why the ministerial committee is meeting to look at these matters carefully.

Mr. Whitelaw: Will the Minister pay particular regard to what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) said? Is he aware that many small voluntary organisations feel strongly that they are hamstrung by a long bureaucratic process before they can get any of the grants—in some cases comparatively small ones which would do a great deal of good? I hope that the Home Office will carefully consider the possibility of giving grants straight to voluntary organisations, particularly small ones, rather than making them go through the long process of many of the local authority social service departments.

Mr. John: The right hon. Gentleman will know that the Local Government Grants (Social Need) Act of 1969 ties such aid to local authorities, so that legislative amendment would be needed before his suggestion could be adopted. We are conscious of the value of the voluntary organisations, as I hope I have shown. The numbers of urban aid projects supported by local authorities represent a significant fraction of the total urban aid projects. But the value of the urban aid programme is its flexibility—its ability to support local authority projects at one stage and those of voluntary organisations at another. It is because that flexibility would be lacking if a set percentage were given to voluntary organisations that I do not think that that would be valuable.

Mr. Grant: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on another occasion.

Mr. Speaker: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it will be raised again on Question No. 15.

Mr. Lawrence: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the Urban Aid Programme.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the Urban Aid Programme.

Mr. Hodgson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the Urban Aid Programme.

Mr. Cockcroft: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the Urban Aid Programme.

Mr. Silvester: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the future of the Urban Aid Programme.

Mr. John: I refer to the reply I gave earlier to Questions by the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) and others.

Mr. Lawrence: Is the Minister aware that the reply which he gave earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) was astonishingly inadequate and showed an appalling ignorance of the developing nature of this problem? In recent years the inner city area problem has been moving out to the fringes of the areas, and those areas and the new council housing estates are taking the strain. Will the hon. Gentleman think about this matter again? In particular, will he give more consideration to giving specific help to those voluntary organisations that have been very effective?

Mr. John: All that the hon. Gentleman succeeds in doing is to show me that he has not understood the place of the urban programme within the total Government programme to overcome the problem of deprivation. The main thrust of the programme against urban deprivation and deprivation generally must be for the main spending programmes of the Government Departments. The urban programme is designed to produce a variety of measures that will help to alleviate the situation, but nobody pretends that in isolation they form a total strategy against this sort of decay.

Mr. Hodgson: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the existence of the inner city working party. In view of the serious

nature of the problems that the cities face, will he say, first, what the working party is looking into, secondly, when it will report, and, thirdly, how long thereafter the Government will take to implement its recommendations?

Mr. John: The timetable of my right hon. Friend's group is not a matter for me. All I can say is that it will consider the matter carefully and with as much expedition as possible.

Mr. Lipton: To get this matter into proper perspective, will my hon. Friend consider publishing, in the Official Report or in some other way, the number of urban aid programmes already in operation? We in Lambeth have been treated quite generously. It would help to clear the air if we knew how much was going on.

Mr. John: I should be happy to respond to my hon. Friend's question. I echo his tribute in respect of what is being done. It does us no good to be seen to be denigrating the urban aid programme when in many parts of the country it has brought projects of benefit to people living in the most deprived areas.

Fine Enforcement

Mr. Neubert: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has for more effective fine enforcement.

Mr. John: Since the effectiveness of fine enforcement depends mainly on the manpower resources available to the courts and the police, it can be increased only by adding to those resources. In the present economic situation, the extent to which this can be done is limited. Where, however, particular local problems have arisen, the magistrates' courts committees, with whom the primary responsibility for the staffing of the courts rests, have ordinarily been able to find a solution.

Mr. Neubert: But is the Minister aware that in three magistrates' divisions in North-East London alone the fines outstanding now total £750,000? Does he not agree that when outstanding fines reach that level disrespect for the courts may be induced? Would an increased number of fine enforcement officers not


more than earn their keep by boosting public revenues?

Mr. John: I assume that the hon. Gentleman refers to the divisions of Havering, Newham and Waltham Forest. If so, I can tell him that there is a letter in the post from me informing him that there is no Home Office objection to the appointment of fine enforcement officers in those divisions and that the Magistrates' Committee has been so informed.

Mr. Sims: Does the Minister agree that the work and time involved in the present system of enforcing fines is not very satisfactory? Will he take the opportunity afforded by the Criminal Law Bill to give the courts power, when imposing a fine, to state a day by which it must be paid and to say that if it is not paid by then the offender must go to court and say why it has not been paid?

Mr. John: Although I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's concern at the working of the existing system, his suggested formula seems no more precise than the present one. I am certainly prepared to look at any matter which will help to improve the fine enforcement procedure, but it is not by any means so simple a matter that it can be encapsulated in a few words.

Mr. Alison: In view of what the Minister said about the difficulty of finding resources to improve the collection of fines, does he think that the higher penalties to be imposed under the Criminal Law Bill will simply lead to a greater volume of unpaid fines?

Mr. John: If the hon. Gentleman were to study the percentage of unpaid fines on any date, including, because of statistical conventions, fines which have not fallen due—fines which have been imposed but the time for payment of which has not expired—he will not find such an alarming increase as he supposes. I have no reason to believe that there will be a significant percentage increase in unpaid fines.

Mr. Edward Gardner: Will the Minister confirm that this is a serious problem? In many cases—there are far too many—if a fine is not enforced the sting is taken out and the sanction removed from what should, in appropriate cases,

be one of the most useful and painful of sentences? As my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) has just referred to the Criminal Law Bill, will the Minister bear in mind the fact that a serious attempt must be made to solve what up to now has been an intractable problem?

Mr. John: I do not think that the problem is intractable. While the amount of fines outstanding is a matter for concern, the scale of escalation is not alarming or unusual. Certainly the problem is difficult; that is why solutions are not as easy as some people think. I am prepared to review any lines urged on me by hon. Members, but I warn them that the solution may be somewhat more difficult than the statement of the concern.

Metropolitan Police (Recruitment)

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement about the recruitment to the Metropolitan Police.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): In the first 11 months of this year the Metropolitan Police had a net gain of 966 officers, bringing the strength at the end of November to 22,193. I hope this favourable trend will continue.

Mr. Goodhart: Following the Old Bailey corruption trial, should we not recognise that nearly 40 policemen a day are injured protecting our society from violence and that the number of policemen who are willing to risk their lives and limbs to protect us is infinitely greater than the number of policemen who have been corrupted? Is the Secretary of State aware of the deep dissatisfaction in the police about the way in which their pay claims have been handled and of their concern about what they see as lack of support from the present Parliament? When will the Home Secretary give the police the support they deserve?

Mr. Rees: On the last point, the hon. Member should bear in mind the Government's pay policy, which I support, and the very special transitional arrangements which were made for the police in 1975, when they received 30 per cent. instead of £6 a week. The free market


argument is that the level of recruitment is related to the amount of pay, but the level of police recruitment at the moment belies that argument. There is more to the numbers of recruits attracted than simply the pay that is offered. There is full support for the police in that respect. I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the corruption aspect. Such things do the police no good when they are bandied around in the Press, but it has happened, and it is right that it should be investigated. However, none of that should colour the fact that the police perform a vital job extraordinarily well for our society. I and the Government, and, I believe, the whole House, give them our support for the work they do.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recruitment depends on morale and that many of us feel that the morale of the Metropolitan Police has been raised by the bringing to justice of the policemen in the case that ended yesterday and my right hon. Friend's appointment of a new Commissioner, who has some knowledge of really independent prosecuting procedures in Scotland? Is he further aware that morale depends also on confidence that the Judges' Rules will be followed? Has he yet received the Fisher Report? If not, will he promise to act on it when he does?

Mr. Rees: I take my hon. Friend's view about morale; he is absolutely right. The police themselves accept that when any of their colleagues is found to have done wrong he should be dealt with in this way. To that degree, morale is not affected. The House knows that general problems arise with the changing modes of modern society and the acceptance of the police in society. I should be foolish if I denied that there was a problem. But these are not factors which can be clearly related to aspects of pay or even to other points to which my hon. Friend has referred. As soon as I get the Fisher Report, I shall consider it.

Mr. Whitelaw: Is the Home Secretary aware that the Opposition support him strongly when he says that Parliament must be behind our police force in the duties they carry out. I am sure that that is the wish of the whole House. With that in mind, will the right hon.

Gentleman assure the House that he will as quickly as posible get on with the discussions that he has promised with the Police Federation to achieve an early solution to the present unfortunate dispute?

Mr. Rees: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. I should have known that I had his support in this even if he had not expressed it. I have spoken several times to the Police Federation about the current dispute. There is a basic problem about the 6 per cent. We have had some discussions, and other discussions are to follow on matters raised by the police. There are aspects underlying the problems we are asked to discuss which might lead to the formation of a national police force, or at least a movement in that direction. They are all aspects that we have to watch carefully.

Prison Service

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the screening procedures in operation for members of Her Majesty's Prison Service.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Whitehead: Did my right hon. Friend see the Press reports of 14th and 15th November about the large-scale activity by National Front cells and other groups to the right of the National Front in several of Her Majesty's prisons? Is he aware that 70 out of 300 prison staff in one prison are said to be members of the National Front and to wear National Front insignia and tie-pins with their uniforms? In view of the delicate nature of the Prison Service, the security aspects involved and the need to have good relations in our prisons as everywhere else, will my right hon. Friend have these matters investigated?

Mr. Rees: As background, I should tell my hon. Friend that the National Front is not a proscribed body. There are thus no grounds for not employing staff who are members of it or for placing any restrictions on them because of their membership. I stick firmly to that principle. If I were to get involved in the political motivation of civil servants at that level, I should move into very difficult waters. It is a different matter where


there is evidence that the political views of the staff affect their attitudes to prisoners, whatever maybe those political views. It is that with which I am concerned. If prison staff wear insignia and so on, that is a matter for the governor, and I am confident that it will be dealt with. What I need, as I have said to my hon. Friends who have spoken to me, is evidence that membership of, say, the National Front affects the way in which prison staff treat prisoners. If I have evidence of that kind—I realise the difficulty—I shall act on it.

Mr. Speaker: May I appeal to the House for shorter supplementary questions and shorter replies?

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I realise the difficulties of moving in this sensitive area, but does my right hon. Friend accept that, whilst the majority of prison officers do a very good job in extremely difficult circumstances, it is totally inappropriate for members of Right-wing racialist organisations to have control over black and coloured prisoners who are, by the nature of their situation, in an extremely vulnerable position? Will my right hon. Friend make strenuous efforts to ensure that no discrimination is practised by prison officers against black and coloured prisoners?

Mr. Rees: I shall certainly continue to watch the last point. It is the only one with which I can concern myself.

Prison Rules

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any further plans to liberalise prison rules.

Mr. John: Prison regulations and standing orders are being examined with a view to making them less paternalistic and restrictive in some respects, whilst still safeguarding the interests of both staff and prisoners.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is great disappointment about the Home Secretary's statement on disciplinary procedures? Does he not think it proper that the functions of boards of visitors should be separated between, on the one hand, their disciplinary function and, on the other hand, their advocacy of prisoners' interests and the

hearing of prisoners' grievances? Will he and his right hon. Friend look again at this matter?

Mr. John: My right hon. Friend has looked at it and has announced the Government's attitude. I am sorry that my hon. Friend is disappointed with it.

Mr. Lawrence: Does not the Minister of State consider that much of the utter hopelessness of our prison system would be reduced by an extension of work regimes in prisons? What have the Government done in the recent past to extend work régimes for prisoners, and what do they proposed to do in future?

Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman will know the difficulty of getting suitable work régimes, especially with the constraints in public expenditure. The Government are prepared to consider any constructive scheme to make prisons into places capable of reforming people's attitudes rather than places of mere incarceration which simply provide a period outside society.

Mr. Emery: Does the Minister realise that a large section of British society considers that a term of imprisonment should be regarded as a punishment, and that over-liberalisation does not provide what it believes to be the proper and necessary form of punishment to deter prisoners from committing further crimes and returning to prison?

Mr. John: I feel that I should not intrude on what is developing into a private quarrel between the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on this subject. It highlights a dichotomy in British society, and we have to decide whether we are aiming at harshness or constructive treatment. If, as the hon. Gentleman says, over-liberalisation is harmful, the very fact that he uses that phrase automatically means that it is harmful. We seek a proper measure of liberalisation which will safeguard the interests of both staff and prisoners. If the hon. Gentleman had visited prisons, he would have no doubt that they were fairly stern places.

Mr. Malcolm Gregory (Passport Delay)

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give his attention to a complaint from


Mr. Malcolm Gregory of 16 Mereland Way, St. Helens, about his claim against his Department regarding non-return of a passport on the grounds of neglect of departmental duties in providing a public service; if he will specify the correspondence and documents received by his Department from both the hon. Member for St. Helens and his constituent, Mr. Malcolm Gregory; and whether he has replied.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): Mr. Gregory has written twice and answers have been sent, but I very much regret that on the first of these occasions there was delay within the Department. Mr. Gregory in his second letter says he was put to extra expense as a result, and we have said that we shall be prepared to consider paying him compensation if he will produce appropriate documents to substantiate the amount claimed.

Mr. Spriggs: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for her reply. Is she aware that Mr. Gregory, on behalf of his guest, a young girl from Poland, applied for the return of the passport two weeks before the date of the girl's flight back home to Warsaw? As he did not receive the passport in time, the young girl had to overstay as the ticket was no longer valid after a particular date. In view of what my hon. Friend said, I do not propose to take the matter further until I hear from my constituent.

Dr. Summerskill: I very much regret the inconvenience that was caused to the young lady. At the time, an unprecedented number of passports had been received in the Immigration and Nationality Department—double the normal number. Far from there being an increase in the staff of that Department to cope with this extra work, there has been an 8 per cent. reduction in the past year.

Chemical Warfare

Mr. Blaker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about Great Britain's defences against chemical warfare weapons.

Dr. Summerskill: Defence against weapons of war is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for

Defence. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's concern is with civil defence, and the nature of possible protective measures is kept under regular review.

Mr. Blaker: Does not recent information show that the Russians have enormous stocks of chemical warfare weapons and the rockets with which to deliver them to this country? Is it not therefore unwise for the Government to disband the chemical defence establishment in Cornwall, thus reducing our capacity to defend ourselves against these weapons? Will the Home Office, with the Defence Department, look again at this matter?

Dr. Summerskill: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is constant liaison between the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence on this matter. It is believed that the likely use of those weapons is in localised warfare and that an attack on the civil population with chemical weapons is less likely than an attack with nuclear weapons. However, in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence, we are involved in research of a defensive nature to protect the civil population if necessary.

Mr. George Rodgers: Does my hon. Friend agree that the only defence against such weapons is an international agreement to abolish them?

Dr. Summerskill: The latest British initiative is the tabling of a draft convention on the comprehensive prohibition of chemical weapons in the Geneva Disarmament Conference. There already exists the Geneva Gas Protocol 1925, by which various countries undertake not to be the first to use chemical weapons.

Mr. Warren: Is the Minister aware of the enormous Russian build-up in the stockpile of nerve gases? Will she assure the House that the Ministry of Defence has told her about the size and scale of the operation which the Russians can mount?

Dr. Summerskill: As I have said, we are in constant co-operation with the Ministry of Defence on this subject, but chemical weapons are not and have never been regarded as suitable for strategic use, and there is no intelligence to suggest that their strategic use is contemplated.

Attendance Centres (Senior Offenders)

Mr. Sims: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average cost per head of treating offenders who are made the subject of senior attendance centre orders.

Mr. John: For the financial year 1975–76 the cost was about £3 per offender for a session of two hours' attendance. Attendance centre orders are for a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 24 hours.

Mr. Sims: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. Does not the figure he has given confirm that this is a much more economical way of dealing with offenders in the 17 to 21 age group than sending them to a prison establishment and also perhaps is more effective than imposing a fine that is not paid? Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a strong case for increasing the number of senior attendance centres, the number of which for many years has remained at two throughout the country?

Mr. John: As I told the hon. Gentleman recently in answer to a Question, in 1974 the Advisory Council on the Penal System recommended closure of the centres, believing that more constructive treatment could be afforded by community service. We are considering that in the light and context of all the other proposals of the advisory council for the treatment of offenders between the ages of 17 and 21.

Harmondsworth Centre, Heathrow (Detentions)

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the maximum length of time of detention at the Harmondsworth Centre near Heathrow Airport of any disputed immigrant or visitor to the United Kingdom during a recent stated period.

Dr. Summerskill: During the quarter ended 30th September 1976 a woman who had previously gained admission with a forged passport was detained at Harmondsworth as an illegal entrant for 85 days before being transferred to Holloway Prison. There was thought to be a substantial risk of her disappearing if she were released. This unusually long period of detention arose partly from

the complexity of the case and partly from the need to consider representations made on her behalf.

Mr. Bidwell: Does my hon. Friend agree that other cases which do not quite fit into that pattern involving people who have come to this country simply as visitors are taking much too long to resolve? For some people it has been a case not of "Welcome to Britain", as is stated over the tunnel exit from Heathrow Airport, but of a three-week or four-week look at the interior of Harmondsworth detention block and leaving this country without ever really setting eyes on it.

Dr. Summerskill: My hon. Friend has simply described what happens under the Immigration Act. The average number of people detained overnight in Harmondsworth in the past couple of months is 27. A person can be detained under the Immigration Act pending his examination and pending a decision to give or refuse him leave to enter, or if he is a person who has been refused leave to enter and is detained pending removal.

Mr. Dykes: Will the hon. Lady accept that I have a lot of experience of these cases, both in the centre and at Heathrow installations as a whole, and that by and large the service is very well run? The hard-pressed immigration officers have an enormous task to perform, being inundated with people all the time, and they do is very fairly and efficiently. The public as a whole in this country, including immigrants, want severe controls to be exercised; that is overwhelmingly self-evident. I know of immigrants who have praised the conduct and efficiency of the officers.

Dr. Summerskill: I acknowledge that the people concerned at Heathrow and Harmondsworth are doing a responsible job, often in very difficult conditions. Having visited Harmondsworth myself, I can assure the House that the conditions there are as good as can be expected in the circumstances.

Deportation Orders

Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many deportation orders he has served in the last six months.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Statistics are recorded by reference not to deportation


orders served but to orders enforced. During the six months ended 30th November 1976, 149 orders were enforced against persons who had become liable to deportation by virtue of Section 3(5) or (6) of the Immigration Act 1971.

Mr. Canavan: Does my right hon. Friend accept that in dealing with deportation orders justice should be not only done but seen to be done, and that that principle is one of the best safeguards we can have for national security? In the case of Philip Agee and Mark Hosenball, will he consider instituting some form of public hearing, if the accused want such a hearing, instead of their being tried by a secret kangaroo court?

Mr. Rees: On the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I hope that he will not think that the deportations that I have mentioned are to do with national security. They cover a wide variety of matters, and, in view of what you have said, Mr. Speaker, I shall not go into them. There have been no security cases.
The orders in the cases which are now the subject of public discussion have not yet been carried out. It is not a question of a kangaroo court. Given all the difficulties relating to the 1971 Act, it would be wrong for the information which was given to me to become public knowledge. It is within that limit that the three very eminent men, who are not under my control in any way, will look at the information that I have had put to me.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Would it be true to say that the Home Secretary sees fit to deport those who have abused our hospitality? In those circumstances, having regard to the later Question on the Order Paper in my name, does he in general deport people guilty of crimes of violence?

Mr. Rees: This is a long and complicated matter about which I should be happy to have a word with the hon. Gentleman. In the main, people are deported on the recommendation of a criminal court, and undoubtedly violence is one part of that.

Immigrants

Mr. Gow: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is

his latest estimate of the number of immigrants from the new Commonwealth who will be admitted for settlement in 1976.

Dr. Summerskill: I estimate the number of citizens of New Commonwealth countries who will be accepted for settlement on arrival in 1976 to be about 29,000.

Mr. Gow: Since that figure is higher than the figure for 1975, will the hon. Lady tell us whether her policies are going to lead to a prospective reduction or a prospective increase in the number admitted?

Dr. Summerskill: The estimated increase over the figure for 1975 is about 1,000. The bulk of the increase so far this year, as compared with last year, results from the steps that the Government have taken to speed up the rate of entry clearances for entitled dependants from the Indian sub-continent. It represents not an easing of the control but a slight improvement in the rate at which dependants are entitled to come here—an improvement which I am sure hon. Members opposite would support.

Mr. Alison: Does the hon. Lady consider that the annual figure for 1976, of about 58,000 a year, is an acceptable level of immigration, or would she wish to see it reduced?

Dr. Summerskill: The only way to reduce it is to make radical changes in present commitments—commitments which I understand hon. Members support—contained in our pledges to United Kingdom passport holders, wives and children of those already here, and people who were admitted in a temporary capacity, were resident here before the Act came into operation, have been here for five years, and are now immune from removal.

Mr. Goodhart: What action are the Government taking to implement the resolution which the Labour Party conference carried, calling for a dramatic relaxation in the immigration rules?

Dr. Summerskill: I think that there has been some misunderstanding of the exact nature and meaning behind that resolution, but I am confident that the immigration policy which the Government are now


carrying out has the full support of most people in the country.

Mr. George Rodgers: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is practically open-ended immigration from other member States of the Common Market?

Dr. Summerskill: That may be the theory, but it is not the practice.

Moroccan Citizens (Rape Conviction)

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has yet decided to deport Mohamed Ronndi, Hassan Shailon and Mustapha Amnsor, all citizens of Morocco, convicted in October of raping a 21-year-old girl.

Mr. Rees: These youths, aged between 14 and 17, come from families who have been settled here for several years. The court, which had power to recommend deportation only for offenders aged 17 or over, made no recommendation for the deportation of any of the youths. They are currently serving custodial sentences and I shall consider their situation nearer the dates of their possible release from custody.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Is it not clear that these horrible men have abused the hospitality of the country? Are we not entitled to say that we can dispense with their company?

Mr. Rees: That was not the view of the court. I shall consider the situation at the appropriate time, when I have details of when they are likely to be released. They came here with their parents when they were younger, and their parents are settled here. It is in that context that I have to consider the case of these Moroccan youths.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Drinking and Driving

Mr. Michael Marshall: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to implement the recommendations of the Blennerhassett Committee on drinking and driving.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the

hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) on 1st December 1976.

Mr. Marshall: Would the hon. Gentleman like to add to that reply? In this season of good will it is important that we should consider these matters very carefully, and it is high time that we had a more clearly considered view from the Government.

Mr. Horam: We have a clear-cut view of the Blennerhassett Report, which I hope the hon. Gentleman supports, as I think he does. We want to introduce legislation as soon as reasonably practicable, but that is not an early possibility.

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Hannam: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23rd December.

Mr. Canavan: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 23rd December.

Mr. Neubert: asked the Prime Minister whether he will list his official engagements for 23rd December 1976.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): My official engagements today comprise answering these Questions and certain meetings with ministerial colleagues and with you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Hannam: Will the Prime Minister accept our best wishes for a happy and peaceful Christmas, and also take the opportunity today of giving the British people some good cheer by announcing that in view of the disastrous and deteriorating record of his Government and the damaging legislation which has forced the resignation of one of his Cabinet colleagues, he will announce a General Election early in the new year?

The Prime Minister: In the same spirit, may I respond to the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, go a little further, and say that the disinterested work that lie does for the disabled is recognised in many quarters?
As for giving some good cheer, it has not been my practice to try to falsify the position. I suppose that during these last


nine months I have given a lot of bad cheer, but, I hope, a lot of realistic indicators to the House.
But I do not think that we should depart for Christmas altogether assuming that everything is black. There is a break in the clouds—for example, the situation in the oil industry. I understand that there have been 12 new discoveries in 1976 in the North Sea, that seven of the 14 commercial fields are on stream, that we are pumping oil at the rate of 400 barrels a day, or 20 million tons a year, and that next year it is expected that we shall reach the target of between 35 million and 45 million tons. This afternoon, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy will be signing participation agreements with both Shell and Esso that will benefit the British people.
In addition, manufacturing industry investment trends are up——

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Too long.

The Prime Minister: It may be too long for the hon. Gentleman, but it is not too long for the British people to hear a little good news—and, as hon. Members will be aware, the CBI survey shows that the trends in terms of orders for exports in manufacturing industry and our domestic production are up.
Whilst we look at the bad news, let us remember the rifts in the clouds—[Interruption]—and the Opposition—and in these circumstances let the whole House go forward steadfastly in 1977, putting thoughts of elections behind it, to the improved situation of 1978.

Mr. Canavan: Will my right hon. Friend have a word with the Chairman of the Post Office Corporation about alleged delays in the deliveries of Christmas mail? Although most Post Office employees are working very hard, is it not intolerable that the recruitment of extra staff should be severely limited, especially when we have 1½ million unemployed and the Post Office is expected to make a profit of about £400 million this year? Finally, may I thank my right hon. Friend for his Christmas card, which the Post Office has managed to deliver in good time? May I wish him and Audrey a very happy Christmas?

The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his good will. If things go

on like this, I shall not be frightened of coming to the House, as I normally am. I was getting a little worried about the delivery of my Christmas cards and asked someone to be in touch with the Post Office this morning. I am told that all the packages and all the Christmas cards posted by the last dates announced will be delivered by Christmas Day, so I hope that those who have not yet received my Christmas card will get it before long.
As to the financial situation of the Post Office, it is quite true, as my hon. Friend says, that it has made a substantial profit this year. I was very pleased when the Post Office announced yesterday its intention to freeze all its telecommunication charges, including telephone charges, until 31st March 1978. That will mean a period of two and a half years altogether since the last increase.

Mr. Neubert: Will the Prime Minister set aside half an hour in order to study the resignation speech of his right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Prentice)? Will the Prime Minister study in particular the passage in which his right hon. Friend said that the choice of the recent economic measures was designed to avoid a situation in which the Government had to rely on Labour Members to carry through a Labour Government's legislation?
Does the Prime Minister agree that a Government who cannot command the support of their own party in the carrying of measures fundamental to the nation's welfare have lost all moral justification for continuing in office?

The Prime Minister: I do not need look to the hon. Gentleman for justifications of morality. When the Government cannot command the support of their followers they will not be the Government. That is quite clear. I have made that clear consistently throughout the whole period. The Opposition have got to beat us first. They have not done that yet, and it will be a long time before they do.
As to the views of hon. Members, I shall study all these speeches, including that of the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), which contains his account of his differences with the Conservative Front Bench. I shall see whether I can do anything to promote


some healing of the split between those two views.

Mr. Bidwell: I understand that the Prime Minister has no official engagements on 25th December and for several days to come but, casting his mind into the future, does he not agree that the return of a Tory Government is too horrific to contemplate, and that the standing of our movement will depend upon our ability to fight the menace of unemployment? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it will be precisely on that basis that we shall sustain the unity of our movement?

The Prime Minister: Unemployment is of very great concern to the Government and, I hope, to everybody in this country. I cannot promise much consolation on this aspect, and never have done—and this applies to 1977. That is why I have asked that every effort should be made by all our representatives at international organisations to try to achieve an international consensus on how world trade can be improved during next year. The Government intend to stand fast by their policy of inducing healthy growth through getting greater export orders. That demands a high level of world trade. That is why we are focusing our attention on this matter.

Mr. Whitelaw: Although everyone, of course, should welcome good news for the sake of the nation as a whole, will the Prime Minister, in giving his side of the good cheer—I do not grudge him that, and certainly add my good will—reflect on the fact that because his Government failed to take earlier and firmer action on the economic front he is today presiding over the highest Christmas unemployment figure since the war?

The Prime Minister: It is true that the figure of unemployment is, sadly, higher than at any time for many years, but the right hon. Gentleman, even in the spirit of good will, cannot escape his share of responsibility. [Interruption.] Let me try to elucidate this for the benefit of Conservative Members who do not appear to understand these matters.
In November 1973, the increase in money supply of this country stood at a figure of 28·9 per cent.—a disgracefully

high figure. The effect of this was working through the economy for the first 18 months at least after the Labour Government took office, or indeed longer. To indicate the contrast, I point out that in November 1976 the figure was 13·7 per cent. I do not mind being told that that is too high—perhaps it is—but it does not lie in the mouths of Conservative Members to say that to me.

Mr. David Steel: Returning to thoughts of good will, will the Prime Minister reflect on the wisdom or unwisdom of the strange proposal we had from the broadcasting authorities that party political broadcasts should not be transmitted during the Christmas period? The one that I propose to make is apparently to be the last. With this apparent abundance of good things to tell the country, does not the Prime Minister feel that the New Year would not be a bad time at which to do it?

The Prime Minister: If I can help by writing the hon. Gentleman's script for him I shall be very happy for him to deliver it on New Year's Eve. But I have never believed in having broadcasting vans outside football matches on a Saturday afternoon, and I very much doubt whether people are anxious to listen to political messages on New Year's Eve or Christmas Day.

BWLCH

Mr. Steen: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Bwlch.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Steen: It is a pity that the Prime Minister will not be visiting this nice Welsh hamlet near Brecon. If he went there, he would see some of the 600,000 young people under 25 who are unemployed. Does he realise that the rates of pay under the job creation scheme are nearly double those paid in private industry and that if they were reduced more young people would have work created for them—or does he not care too much about the 600,000 young people?

The Prime Minister: Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I have not only been to Bwlch, but I can pronounce it.

Mr. John Davies: Wrong!

The Prime Minister: I understand that there is a difference on these matters of pronunciation between scholars from North Wales and South Wales. But I know this village in Powys, lying on the main road between Crickhowell and Brecon, and I have been through it many times.
Although the hon. Gentleman's question is serious, I do not think that it particularly relates to this village. Since the hon. Gentleman put down the Question I have had inquiries made. In the Brecon travel-to-work area, which includes this village, the unemployment rate, at 5 per cent., is one of the lowest in Wales. I know that the hon. Gentleman, from the Bills that he introduces but seemingly never prints, is concerned with ways in which we might overcome some of these difficulties. The problem is a very serious one, and it has been referred to in the most recent series of questions.

Mr. Wrigglesworth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the bases of good cheer for the unemployed at present is the fact that the market seems to have received the Government's economic policy rather better than it has been received by the Opposition or the Press and that as a result the exchange rate of the pound in recent weeks has gone up from $1·55 to $1·68? Does my right hon. Fried agree that in the coming year one of the further actions that will help the pound will be to deal with the problem of the sterling balances? Is it the Government's view that the sterling balances should be phased out and that sterling should cease to be a reserve currency?

The Prime Minister: There is no doubt that sterling has been strengthened by the recent Government measures and, of course, by the IMF loan which has now been agreed. As to the future of the sterling balances, I have my own views about that, as the House will know. Others will have to enter into an international agreement if the sterling balances are to be phased out, and that might take a considerable period of time. However, shorter-term arrangements for ensuring that sudden withdrawals of sterling balances do not put a false value on sterling are now being considered and will, I hope, be brought to a conclusion.

Mr. Madel: If the Prime Minister will not be visiting the village the name of which I would not dare to pronounce, will he, with the Secretary of State for Employment, go to the Rubery Owen factory during the recess? The situation there is desperately serious and is having a very bad effect on plants such as Chrysler at Dunstable, and British Leyland. Does he agree that the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service ought to send a special unit to the factory for three or four months to help the company sort out its industrial relations, as 1976 has been a terrible year in that factory?

The Prime Minister: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I believe that this problem ought to be solved. The general industrial situation, which is so much better, is due to the fact that both sides of industry—both management and the workers in the factories—have been co-operating to a great degree. I regret to say that that has not been true of the Rubery Owen factory.
I would prefer not to comment on the hon. Gentleman's suggestion but I shall convey it to the Secretary of State for Industry, who is taking a close day-by-day interest in the matter. Indeed, he had meetings on it yesterday and will do so again today. It is a situation that I should like to see solved. In general, I can see nothing in the situation at the factory that a little good will and common sense could not resolve.

Mr. Buchan: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Norman Buchanan—I am sorry, Mr. Norman Buchan.

Mr. Buchan: That was almost as bad a pronunciation as "Bwlch", Mr. Speaker.
While on the question of unemployment, it would be churlish of us on the Clyde not to thank the Prime Minister for his Christmas card and that of the Secretary of State for Scotland, in the form of their action with regard to Marathon shipyard, where the men have fought for so long to preserve their jobs.
Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that we do not necessarily want to see everyone kept in employment? I hope it is not too late for my right hon. Friend to send a Christmas card, in the


shape of a dismissal notice, to the House of Lords so that we can get the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill through.

The Prime Minister: We in Wales are internationalists and we welcome the intervention of my hon. Friend into our affairs.
The Government have taken a decision with regard to Marathon, which should maintain employment. We believe that is a reasonable decision to take with public money because there may well be a future opportunity for these jack-up rigs. These are not the same as oil platforms, which must be built for specialised purposes. We believe that it would be wrong to allow Marathon to disappear at this moment when there are prospects for the future.
With regard to the House of Lords, let us preserve it until the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill is through. In the light of the present circumstances and developments in the shipbuilding industry, I believe that the House of Lords would be well advised to get on with the Bill so that the industry can have an assured future.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. William Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Out of 24 Questions tabled to the Home Office, no fewer than 10 were couched in identical terms by Conservative Members. They related to the urban aid programme. Those hon Gentlemen did not even have the wit to change a single word in the Questions. This seems to be an abuse of Question Time. It is a matter which has been raised in previous dispensations. As it is your duty, Mr. Speaker, to protect the interests of Back-Bench Members in all parts of the House, I hope that the matter will be discussed, either informally with the Leader of the House or by some other method, to seek to prevent this abuse.

Mr. Lipton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will remember that I raised a similar point the other day. I do not know whether note has been taken by the Leader of the House of what was said by me and by yourself. We would welcome any approach by the Leader of the House to the Government

worthies who sit on the Procedure Committee to get them to do something about it.

Mr. Speaker: This is by no means a new problem. The Select Committee on Procedure examined the very question raised by the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) in the 1964–65 Session. The syndicalisation of Questions is an old disease that breaks out from time to time, then it is forgotten, and then it comes back. But the Select Committee on Procedure did not find a way of getting over it. Perhaps the hon. Member ought to take the matter up himself with the Leader of the House, who looks as if he has a Christmas message to give us.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I hope that this is an impressive Christmas message. In view of the discussions in the House a few days ago with regard to this matter, and the exchanges again today, we are prepared to suggest that the matter should be referred to the Procedure Committee again, although we are not confident that it will find a solution that it was not able to find before.

Mr. William Hamilton: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is an important matter that could be resolved by Ministers themselves by refusing to take these Questions together and by taking them separately in turn as they appear on the Order Paper.

Mr. Tebbit: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you think it right for the Committee to take into consideration the way in which the number of Questions answered by Ministers has been declining progressively over a number of years? When hon. Members want to get particular matters raised at Question Time, the natural reaction is for a number of them to pick on items of great interest and to put down similar or identical Questions. Ministers have the solution primarily in their own hands by giving shorter answers and, if necessary, by not linking Questions.

Mr. William Ross: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is a very old trick. Would it not be as well for you to remind hon. Members that they do not have the absolute right of


being called for a supplementary question?

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must answer that one. It is too good to miss. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in what he says. Just as the Ten Commandments are necessary for all of us to preserve, the theory is better than the practice.

Mr. Pavitt: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If this matter is being considered by the Select Committee on Procedure can it at the same time look at the precedence of Questions on the Order Paper? I understand that at the moment the practice is that they are all put into a pile at 4 o'clock and then their places on the Order Paper are determined by the order in which they come out. As a result some hon. Members are lucky in the draw and others very often are not. Could not the Procedure Committee look at that problem?

Mr. Speaker: I am quite sure that it will.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Business Question, may I say that I have to leave the Chair for a short while, and I doubt whether on my return I shall see everyone who is now here for the Adjournment debates. May I therefore now wish those hon. Members who ask long supplementary questions, as well as those who ask short ones, and those hon. Members who raise points of order, as well as those who remain silent, a very happy Christmas.

Mr. Whitelaw: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for the week after the Christmas Recess?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The business when the House returns after the Christmas Adjournment will be as follows:
MONDAY 10TH JANUARY—Debate on "Developments in the European Communities May-November 1976", Cmnd. No. 6695.
Motion on EEC Documents R/3592/ 74, R/1820/75, R/2146/75 and S/349/ 76 on banking.
And, if there is time, motion relating to the Bread Prices Order.
TUESDAY 11TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Covent Garden Market (Financial Provisions) Bill, which it is hoped to obtain by about 7 o'clock.
Motion on the Social Security (Contributions, Re-Rating) Order.
WEDNESDAY 12TH JANUARY—Supply [3rd Allotted Day]: the subject for debate to be announced later.
Motions on the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (United States) Orders.
THURSDAY 13TH JANUARY—Progress in Committee on the Scotland and Wales Bill.
FRIDAY 14TH JANUARY—Consideration of Private Members' motions.

Mr. Whitelaw: I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman two questions. First, is he aware that the European Parliament will be sitting in plenary session in the week beginning 10th January? Is it not rather extraordinary that the debate on the six-monthly report has been arranged on a day when Members of the European Parliament are unable to take advantage of it without absenting themselves from Luxembourg and missing one day of important business there? Will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that this piece of apparent mismanagement will not occur again?
Secondly, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the United States double taxation relief order is of much more significance than most double taxation orders, which are usually dealt with in Committee upstairs, and that it merits an earlier start than 10 o'clock at night? We made this request in the summer. As it has been left so long, is it not possible to arrange now for it to be debated on a day when it could start at 7 o'clock?

Mr. Foot: Dealing first with the right hon. Gentleman's question about Wednesday's debate on the double taxation order, I shall look at that point, but I cannot give any guarantee that we shall alter it. I shall have to look at the time


when it is required and at other considerations. But, naturally, I shall look at it.
The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that the debate on the six-monthly report will be taking place at the same time as discussions are going on in Brussels. I am sorry that this should occur, and I know that there have been one or two occasions in the past when similar difficulties have arisen and when we have promised to avoid it in the future. I renew the undertaking that we shall try to avoid it in the future, but it was extremely difficult to avoid it on this occasion because we had to rearrange the business, and this was the only time when we were able to take the six-monthly report.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: Will the Leader of the House make a good resolve for 1977 to have a proper debate on energy, which we have not had for a long time, with special reference to nuclear policy and an even more precise reference to the report of the Central Policy Review Committee on heavy power engineering, which affects a great many jobs?

Mr. Foot: Obviously these are very important questions, and I am sure that opportunities for discussion of them will arise in the not too distant future. I cannot give any indication now about the precise occasion on which that might occur, but obviously we shall take the right hon. Gentleman's request into account.

Mr. Jay: My right hon. Friend read out a whole string of EEC documents. Do they all refer to banking, or is it only the last one which does?

Mr. Foot: I think that only one of them refers to banking.

Mr. Spearing: What are the others?

Mr. Foot: I must apologise to the House. I think that they all refer to banking, although I am not absolutely clear about it. Before committing myself one way or the other, I should like to look at them again in more detail. I think that they all refer to banking. But if I am mistaken about that, I shall communicate the correct information to my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing).

Mr. Grimond: Has the Leader of the House any information about the proposed business for the Monday following our return? Is it intended to go on with the Committee stage of the devolution Bill? It is important for Members from Scotland to know what is to be done on that Monday.

Mr. Foot: I am sorry that I have not indicated what is to happen on that Monday. It is not certain what will be fixed. When there is a decision on what is to be the subject, if we can find some way of communicating it to right hon. and hon. Members, I agree that it would be for the convenience of the House for us to do so. Normally, when the business is read out for the week of our return after a recess, the following Monday's business is not necessarily decided upon and, therefore, it is not usually the custom to indicate it. But I shall try to indicate it to the House as soon as a decision is reached.

Mr. Spearing: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, when it is proposed that the House should consider EEC documents, habits have not improved? He gave an undertaking some time ago to read the title of each document on these occasions, and he has been unable to do so this morning. Is he aware that hon. Members have only five hours between now and the rising of the House to put down amendments to documents which are to be considered on our first day back? Is that not skating on rather thin ice procedurally?

Mr. Foot: I acknowledge that there are still considerable difficulties in dealing with EEC business that comes before the House. There are a variety of reasons which are all too well known to my hon. Friend. They arise partly from the fact that we do not always know when the business is coming up in Brussels, and partly because we do not know how long we have to decide and what is the nature of the decisions. I acknowledge fully that we have not solved the problem. We must make fresh efforts to do so. But the Government seek to provide as much notice as possible on all occasions.

Mr. McCrindle: Has the Leader of the House seen Early-Day Motion No. 71, praying against the Social Security (Women's Class 2 Contributions) Order?
[That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Social Security (Women's Class 2 Contributions) Order 1976 (S.1., 1976, No. 1976), dated 24th November 1976, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th December, be annulled.]
Will the right hon. Gentleman see that that is put in place on Tuesday 11th January so that it can be discussed at the same time as the Social Security (Contributions, Re-Rating) Order?

Mr. Foot: Yes. I give that undertaking. Certainly it will be possible to discuss that order at the same time. We shall make any provision necessary to ensure that that happens.

Mr. William Hamilton: With regard to the Thursday's debate, does my right hon. Friend intend to suspend the rule? In view of the very important education debate which is going on in the country at the present, will he provide time very soon for a debate on the report produced by the Expenditure Committee on decision-making in the Department of Education and Science?

Mr. Foot: I cannot say when we shall be able to debate the second matter that my hon. Friend raised. Obviously it is an important one, and we shall look at the possibilities.
As for suspending the rule on the Thursday, we have not made any decision about that. We shall have discussions between the usual channels and we shall hear any representations that there may be from other parts of the House, but at the moment we are proposing to proceed on the normal basis.

Mr. Moate: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has seen reports that the Government have agreed to accept the European proposals for a 40-ton limit on lorries? If he has, can he confirm that there will be an opportunity for the House to debate this matter and to vote on it before any irrevocable steps are taken?
May I also ask the right hon. Gentleman about the motion on the remaining Orders of the Day relating to the House of Commons Service Committee's First Report which proposes that the size of Hansard be switched to A4 paper? Will

he try to arrange a debate on that at a reasonably convenient hour so that most hon. Members can take part in the discussion?

Mr. Foot: On that second matter, I cannot say that it is possible to have a debate on it at an early stage in our proceedings because we have a great deal of other business to transact. But obviously it is a matter on which right hon, and hon. Members will want to give their views. It has been discussed by the Services Committee, and we want to hear what right hon. and hon. Members have to say about it.
As for the hon. Gentleman's first question, I have seen the reports to which he referred. Judging from what I have seen of them, they are nothing more than rumours. But a matter of such major importance would have to be discussed according to the procedures that we accept for delay with EEC business.

Mr. Madden: Does my right hon. Friend plan to give time to debate the Prayer against the import duties which are to be increased on 1st January? May we have time to discuss this important order when we return?

Mr. Foot: I fear that we cannot do it before 1st January. My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North has raised this matter on one or two occasions, and we have not been able to satisfy the demand of the House for a debate on the subject. I am not minimising its importance. It is a further illustration of what I said about the House not having yet solved the problem of how to deal with all these proposals for legislative enactments coming from the EEC.

Mr. Tebbit: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to the Early-Day Motion in my name and those of 90 or more right hon. and hon. Members about the Laker Skytrain affair?
[That this House welcomes the decisions of both the High Court and the Court of Appeal in favour of Skytrain, calls upon the Government to accept the decision without wasting even more taxpayers' money on further litigation and to stop its campaign against Laker Airways.]
When are we to expect an announcement or a statement about whether the Government intend to appeal further or to desist from what appears to be, according to the courts, the illegal or unlawful use of ministerial powers? Will this suddenly become sub judice before we come back so that we cannot discuss it then, either?

Mr. Foot: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's interpretation of what the courts may have said in this matter, any more than I could accept his view on almost any other subject. But obviously the Government take time to consider such a judgment, and that is what the Government are doing.

Mr. Lawrence: Will the Lord President please ensure this time—that is, on 10th January—that all the documents relating to the EEC matters which the House is to consider are available in the Vote Office and are the latest editions of those documents?

Mr. Foot: We shall certainly do our best to comply with both those requirements. I know that there have been difficulties in the past, which have arisen partly because of the relationship between this House and the institutions in Brussels and partly, perhaps, from printing difficulties in this place. But both difficulties must be overcome.

Mr. Townsend: In the light of the Report of the Select Committee on Cyprus, which not only deals with that urgent international matter but also comments on the making of British foreign policy, when is the House to have a chance to debate the report? Would it not be wiser to deal with reports of Select Committees rather more promptly than appears customary?

Mr. Foot: It is, of course, normally advantageous if the House can have debates on most reports which conic from Select Committees. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber yesterday when that specific matter was raised by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davis). I gave a reply then, although I do not say that it would have fully satisfied the hon. Gentleman or others.

Mr. Dykes: Will the Leader of the House acknowledge that his display a

little earlier, showing that he did not even know what the EEC documents were about, was very revealing, and will he accept that there is growing concern on both sides of the House that his attitude to scrutiny of EEC matters is careless, insouciant and "could not care less"? Will he undertake to improve his attitude and that of the Government to the proper scrutiny of these documents in the new year—in which I include doing it properly both in Committee as well as on the Floor—and will he also reassure those who go even to the length of fearing that he could not care less about the direct elections Bill?

Mr. Foot: Before replying to the hon. Gentleman, I must apologise that I was unsure about which of the instruments referred to banking matters. Documents Nos. 3592 and 1820 refer to banking legislation, No. 2146 refers to credit institutions and No. 349 refers to the EEC Export Bank. I am sorry that I did not make that clear in the form in which I stated it to the House. In reply to the hon. Gentleman, I must say that we certainly do not treat in a slipshod manner what comes from the Scrutiny Committee. If he had attended some of the debates which we have had on these matters, the hon. Gentleman would have seen that on every occasion I have gone out of my way to pay a special tribute to the Scrutiny Committee and to the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies), who presided over it, as well as to the way in which its reports were presented to the House. The Government have always given most detailed care to any of the recommendations which have come forward, and within the difficulties and constraints imposed upon the House in this matter we have always sought to proceed in the proper way.
I therefore repudiate entirely any suggestion that the Government do not treat properly the recommendations and advice we receive from the Scrutiny Committee. We do not treat these matters in a careless manner. But I repeat—anyone who has studied the matter will come to the same view—that Parliament as a whole has not yet settled the proper relationship between proposals, suggestions and legislation coming from Brussels and our powers and position in the House. Some of us thought that these matters


should have been much better resolved before we ever went into the Community.

Mr. John Davies: I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about the Scrutiny Committee, but may I point out to him nevertheless that the motions that he himself has tabled for changes in the Standing Committee procedure have been on the Order Paper for literally weeks now and no opportunity has been afforded for debate on these matters? Therefore, those—if I may say so—already imperfect amendments to the debating procedures of the House have been forestalled by the Government from debate and being carried into effect.

Mr. Foot: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that, far from wishing the contrary, the Government were perfectly prepared that those proposals should have been put into effect, but some of my hon. Friends, perfectly legitimately—the interest came from this side of the House —wished to put down amendments to the proposals. Therefore, quite rightly, those matters have to be debated. We promised that there would be a debate, and we shall carry out the promise. I know that they have been on the Order Paper for some time, but the House has had a great deal of other business to transact, and I feel that the right hon. Gentleman should not associate himself in any way with what was said by his hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), because nobody knows better than the right hon. Gentleman does that we have treated with scrupulous care all the recommendations which have come from his Committee.

Mr. Emery: The Leader of the House will know of the major crisis in the building industry. Does he realise that after meetings between Ministers and leaders of that industry since the Chancellor's mini-Budget Statement, many people believe that the crisis has in fact worsened? In these circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he will arrange that as soon as possible there can be a full debate, with a proper ministerial statement at the beginning of any such debate, on this problem which affects the whole of the country and is not merely sectional?

Mr. Foot: I do not underrate the seriousness of the problem, which has been raised now by the hon. Gentleman and was raised by other hon. Members yesterday in the debate on the motion for the recess. There is an extremely serious situation in many parts of the country, and when we meet again the House will, of course, wish to have reports from the Government about it. Whether that should be done in the form of a debate is another question, but, clearly, there must be discussions about it and there must be statements to the House. I do not wish in any sense to depreciate the importance of the matter.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURE MINISTERS' MEETING)

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Silkin): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to report to the House on the results of the meeting of the Council of Ministers (Agriculture) on 20th-21st December.
The main questions discussed were the milk action programme, beef import arrangements, the green pound, aid to processing and marketing and the directive on meat products and fisheries. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has already told the House of the decisions taken in the Foreign Affairs Council on fisheries.
No further progress was made on the milk action programme. Some member States could agree to the proposals only if the tax on vegetable and marine fats and oils were included. I made clear that this tax was not a necessary part of the package and was totally unacceptable to us. Other member States supported my view.
I also restated our opposition to the proposed ban on investment aids and the Commission's proposal on "exclusive use". All the proposals on milk will now be reconsidered next year under the United Kingdom presidency.
I told the House after the last Council that I had withheld agreement to the Commission's proposal on beef imports until more liberal arrangements were accepted both for 1977 and for the longer term. The Council has now agreed


to much improved arrangements. From 1st April 1977 the safeguard clause—a ban on beef imports from outside the Community except under special arrangements—will be removed. It will be replaced by a new permanent import regime. Levies on both fresh and frozen beef will be progressively dismantled when prices rise and imported beef is needed. Even when prices are low, the levy will not go above a level about 10 per cent. below the Commission's proposal.
There will also be provision for Community imports in 1977, effective from 1st April, of 75,000 tonnes of beef for manufacture at a reduced or nil levy, of which 25,000 tonnes will be for corned beef manufacture. For the first three months of 1977, before these arrangements come into effect, we have negotiated substantial improvements, on both canned and boneless beef, in the "jumelage" scheme, which allows for imports linked with purchases of intervention beef.
The United Kingdom's share of the 1977 GATT import quota, on which no levy is paid, is also being increased to 12,750 tonnes, the United Kingdom being the only country to receive an increase. These arrangements will greatly improve the opportunity to obtain beef from abroad next year. This will help the trader and the housewife.
The Commission and other member States again pressed me to make an immediate devaluation of the green pound. I resisted this. At the request of the Irish Government, the representative rate for the Irish pound is being devalued by 8 per cent. I asked for and obtained the Council's endorsement of the meat industry employment subsidy which we have found it necessary to pay in Northern Ireland.
The Council agreed on the proposed regulation on Community aid for processing and marketing. This will make available about £165 million over five years within the Community for improvements in the processing and marketing of agricultural products and fish. I believe that this will be helpful to investment in our food industry and that the housewife will gain from lower costs and improved quality in an already efficient sector of industry.
Finally, the Council agreed to an amended directive on health control of meat

products in intra-Community trade. At our request, all references to veterinary supervision have been deleted. I am sure that the House will welcome this. We shall continue with our present arrangements for the allocation of responsibilities between veterinarians and environmental health officers and the whole question will be reviewed within the Community by July 1977. I am glad that this review is being undertaken quickly and I have stressed the importance of a thorough examination of the qualifications of EHOs.

Mr. Peyton: While some of what the Minister's statement contained will be welcome, I do not think that he will be surprised when I say that his statement was more remarkable for what was not in it than for what it contained. It was a thin and meagre diet to offer to the many people who are concerned about the present situation.
On the subject of beef, does the Minister accept that it is his duty to find a middle course between high prices, which will simply cause the consumer to turn away, and measures that will have the effect of undermining the market with the result that the home producer cannot even recover his production costs? Many people have not yet forgotten the 1974 slump into which his Government blundered.
Does the Minister agree that the action of the Irish Government in devaluing their pound by 8 per cent. will be a major stimulus to the smuggling industry on the border? What is he going to do about it?
The fishing industry is beginning to wonder whether it has any future at all. There are serious fears that we appear to be handing over a valuable asset. It is wondered whether at the end of the day we shall find ourselves as customers when we ought to be suppliers.
I find it astonishing that the Minister has made no substantial reference to the plight of the pig industry. Does he not now feel a sharp regret that he missed his earlier opportunity for a modest devaluation of the green pound, since that would have made possible a correction of the anomalous basis upon which pig meat MCAs are calculated. We now face a calamity, and the producers are facing it with the handicap of about £100


per ton on pig meat compared with what European exporters and producers receive.
It is clear that consumers will face the problem later and that there will be serious consequences for the industry in the long run. What action does the Minister intend to take? It would be absolutely wrong if he washed his hands of the problems so tragically affecting the industry.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): I draw the attention of the House to the fact that we are now encroaching upon the time provided for the Adjournment debates.

Mr. Silkin: I note what you have said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall therefore be briefer in my replies than otherwise.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, made a statement to the House on fisheries, and I do not want to add much to that. It is a delicate situation. I must remind the House that that which was so unfortunately given away in relation to fisheries when we joined the EEC—that to which so many hon. Members, including myself, objected at the time—means that my hands are now rather tied. A renegotiation starting from the beaches is a difficult process.
Beef has a long cycle of production. We now have a safety valve and we shall be able to import beef from outside the Community when it is required in this country and other parts of the EEC. Many hon. Members have been pressing for that for some time. We have put an end to the closed door situation that existed for a number of years.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) was right in saying that there is a danger of smuggling resulting from the Irish devaluation of the green pound. I hope that he was given sufficiently long notice of today's debate: he did not have enough notice last time. I draw his attention to what I said in my statement today. I asked for and obtained the Council's endorsement of the meat industry employment subsidy, which we thought necessary to pay in

Northern Ireland in order to avoid smuggling.
I know that the right hon. Member for Yeovil shares my anxiety about the pig meat problem. I hope that the House will understand this matter and that hon. Members will not make arguments that they would not expound if they fully understood. The Commission had the power to change the basis of the calculation of MCAs by up to 8 per cent. That is all that is in its power without the matter going to the Council.
What I managed to obtain from the Council was something that we had achieved for the first time in EEC history, and it was achieved without the devaluation of the green pound. If we had devalued the green pound by the suggested amount of 4·5 per cent. as a method of dealing with pig meat, that would have meant that while MCAs went down by £40, the cost of feeding stuffs would have gone up by £40. No one would have been better off.
We have to change the basis by recalculating MCAs by a different method, or by some other means. A change in the method of calculation would require the unanimous consent of the Council. A number of members of the Council, including Germany, Denmark and Holland, for reasons that I will not go into now, would not wish the recalculation to be made without a great deal of discussion. There have been bilateral discussions and they are continuing, but the Council's decision could be against us. I am as concerned as any other hon. Member about the situation, and I am looking into alternatives.

Mr. Watkinson: Can the Minister be more specific about beef measures and say whether beef prices will fall next year? I appreciate what the Minister has said about the pig meat industry, but there is grave concern in my constituency. I appreciate the difficulties about pig meat MCAs that the Minister has explained to the House, but does he have in mind the possibility of direct measures being taken by us at home if they are necessary to save the industry? Has the Minister noticed the statement made by M. Lardinois about the huge current food surplus between the EEC and the United States? What are the Minister's views?

Mr. Silkin: I hope that I made it clear to the House that I am looking into every possible means of dealing with the problems of the pig meat industry. I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will forgive me for my lengthy reply, but I want hon. Members to understand this. I hope that the problems will be overcome. We shall do our best.
If more beef comes into this country, that must have an effect on prices.

Mr. Grimond: The House cannot too often reiterate the demand of the fishing industry for a 50-mile limit, if only for the purpose of strengthening the Minister's hand in negotiations. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the £165 million allocated for processing and marketing is spread throughout the whole community over five years, it might not amount to much, but it could be very useful? How is it proposed to operate the system? Would it be open to small producers in my part of the world, who have been hard hit, to apply for grants?

Mr. Silkin: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about fishery limits. The opinion of the House is listened to with great interest in Brussels. The basis of the new scheme is that if the individual marketeer or processor pays 50 per cent. and there is a minimum contribution of 5 per cent. from the national State, the Community will pay about 25 per cent. It could be very useful and I hope that it will help in exactly the circumstances described by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Bidwell: Is it true that the Council has decided to write £60 million off the value of more than 1 million tonnes of dried milk?

Mr. Silkin: I have no final information on that point. This scheme caused many of us considerable worry and I think that my hon. Friend is well aware of our attitude to it.

Mr. Jim Spicer: The Minister has stated how concerned he is about the catastrophe facing the pig producers, but is he aware that if the pig processors went out of business, the producers could never come back and would be lost for all time? Does he not agree that it is time that he took urgent action?
Is it not a sad commentary that if 1,200 workers in the Marathon shipyard

were facing dismissal, action would be taken almost overnight, but when we face the same situation in the pig processing industry, nothing is done because the workers are in little packets all over the country?
The write-down in the value of milk powder was inevitable, but does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that a great responsibility rests on him to reach agreement on milk early in the New Year? Is he aware that if agreement is not reached quickly, we shall face chaos and an ever-mounting stockpile of milk powder in the summer? I know that the hon. Gentleman is aware of these points, but can he give an assurance that they will receive priority over any other action that he may take in the new year?

Mr. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman will do me the credit of believing that I am not doing nothing about pig meat. I have moved the position slightly, though not nearly as far as I should like. It is a most urgent question and I understand it from the points of view of both the processors and the producers.
There are many reasons for the milk surplus—or the butter mountain as it is sometimes called—not the least of which is connected with the price and the fact that the consumers throughout the Community have resisted paying prices which they found unacceptable. We have to get the price level right, too.
Some of the measures in the milk action programme were very useful, but I do not see how, for example, the tax on margarine and frying oils will make the slightest difference to the consumption of milk anywhere in the Community.

Mr. Jay: Did we not have an excellent middle way in our deficiency payments system, which was destroyed by the Conservative Party? Can my right hon. Friend make clear whether after April 1977 beef imports for human consumption from efficient producers such as Australia, New Zealand and Argentina will be entirely free, apart from the levies and import duties we shall have to pay anyway?

Mr. Silkin: I am well aware of the point made by my right hon. Friend about our original deficiency payments system. I can give him the assurance which he sought in the second part of his question.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. In fairness to those hon. Members who have Adjournment debates, we must move on.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): In order to save the time of the House, I propose to put the Questions on the four Statutory Instruments motions en bloc.

Ordered,
That the Representation of the People (Amendment) Regulations 1976 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c
That the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 1976 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the Elections (Welsh Forms) Regulations 1976 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the Representation of the People (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1976 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Stallard.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: In order to save the time of the House, I propose to put en blocthe Questions on the next four motions.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.).

VALUE ADDED TAX

That the Value Added Tax (Education) Order 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 2024), a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th December, be approved.—[Mr. Stallard.]

PRICES

That the Compensation for Limitation of Prices (Post Office) Order 1976, a draft of which was laid before this House on 10th December, be approved.—[Mr. Stallard.]

SEA FISHERIES

That the White Fish Authority (Research and Development Grants) Order 1976, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29th November, be approved.—[Mr. Stallard.]

VALUE ADDED TAX

That the Value Added Tax (Food) Order 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 2025), a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th December, be approved.—[Mr. Stallard.]

Question agreed to.

EXPENDITURE

Ordered,
That the Standing Orders of 18th November 1974, 29th October 1975 and 15th December 1975, relating to the nomination of the Expenditure Committee, be amended by leaving out Mr. George Gardiner, Sir John Langford-Holt and Mr. Charles Morrison and inserting Mr. Philip Goodhart, Mr. Cecil Parkinson and Mr. Robert Rhodes James.—[Mr. Stallard.]

INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (STATISTICAL BASIS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Stallard.]

12.46 p.m.

Mr. David Price: Before I deal with the topic of my debate, I must protest strongly about the Government coming to the House on the last day of term with a very important statement. I understand the frustration of hon. Members on both sides of the House who were unable to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The lesson is there for the Government; this is what happens when they bring forward such important statements on the last day of term. It is also a way of cheating hon. Members of the limited amount of private Members' time available to them.
I am grateful for the opportunity of drawing the attention of the House to the Treasury's macro-economic model Scenario II, and the statistical assumptions underlying it. In doing so, I inevitably raise the whole question of the Government's industrial strategy, because it is based on Scenario II.
I first drew attention to this matter and threw doubt upon the validity of Scenario II in a speech during the Third Reading of the Industry Amendment Bill on 28th October. I suggested that the kindest thing that could be said about it was that it put hope before experience. The Minister who replied to that debate made no attempt to answer my criticisms and did not even acknowledge the fact that I or anyone else had made them. Yet the Government strategy and Scenario II were and remain intimately connected with that Bill.
I am pleased to welcome the Minister of State, Treasury, to the Front Bench and the fact that he is to reply to the debate. That fact alone justifies my raising the matter, but I have more specific reasons. Since my criticisms in October, the economic situation has deteriorated further, new measures have been brought forward by the Government and the situation has been, to say the least, fluid.
Yet the Government have remained firm in their public allegiance to their industrial strategy and hence to Scenario II. It must be clear to everyone that

the highly optimistic assumptions upon which Scenario II was constructed last summer are no longer valid, so I am giving the Government an opportunity to get off the hook and finally to abandon Scenario II in favour of a more realistic model for the economy up to 1980—the so-called middle term.
I may be asking too much of the Government; we shall see when the Minister replies. I was interested to read in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's letter to the International Monetary Fund on 15th December a number of references to the Government's industrial strategy which had Scenario II overtones, although Scenario II was not specifically mentioned. Maybe I am a little too suspicious—maybe the Government are quietly sliding out of their Scenario II commitment. I sincerely hope so.
I am entirely at one with the Government when the Chancellor talks to the IMF of
An industrial strategy through which the Government, trade unions and employers are seeking to improve the performance of our manufacturing industry and, in particular, its productivity and ability to compete successfully in world markets.
My quarrel with the Government does not lie in disagreement over the aims of the national industrial strategy, but in the fact that they are seeking totally unrealistic targets, which will confuse and disappoint, rather than enlighten and encourage. Euphoric optimism helps no one and is denied daily by events.
Since October we have had the provisional results of the first year of the scenario story, and these results confirm all the fears about Scenario II optimism. I shall draw to the attention of the House replies which I have received this autumn from relevant Ministers to Questions which I put, about 1975–76 growth rate for individual industrial sectors on the same basis of statistical derivation as that used by the Treasury in compiling Scenario II. It is an unhappy story which justifies my taking up the time of the House on this terminal day before the Christmas Recess.
I take the House back to the birth of Scenario II. The object of the exercise was,
To provide a coherent framework of explicit macro-economic assumptions so far as possible set out in quantitative terms.
Into this framework sectoral working parties for various industries—the Little


Neddies—could slot their own studies and forecasts. There were two alternative models for the middle term—up to 1980—drawn up by the Treasury as the base line for sectoral discussion.
The Treasury made it clear that it regarded these alternative models neither as forecasts nor as national plans. As far as a national plan was concerned, I thought that the Treasury was rather rough on the memory of the former Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, who is now in another place, when it stated
We are not seeking to impose an inflexible set of macro-economic assumptions on 'national plan' lines. Equally, we reject a sterile numbers game.
This raises the question of the purpose and status of these two models. I hope that the Minister of State will enlighten us when he replies.
The Treasury called the two models Scenario I and Scenario II probably because it could not make up its mind about the precise status. That choice of language was more appropriate to the Round House than to Great George Street, and is singularly misleading. I have looked up the word "scenario" in the Oxford Dictionary and it give two definitions. The first is
a skeleton libretto of play or opera",
and the second is
a complete plot of film play, with the necessary directions for the actors and details of scenes etc.
The word "scenario" is derived from the Italian word "scena" meaning "scene".
Scenarios I and II do not fall within either of these descriptions, so why was that word used? I think that it was used because it is a vogue word current in the media and public relations. It is what that very distinguished civil servant Sir Ernest Gowers described as "a modish word". In his book he condemns modish writing and says:
This is the sort of writing that forces its modernity on the reader by posture and display, like an incompetent model flaunting a new dress rather than a sensible woman wearing one. In modish writing the writer goes out of his way to parade his knowledge of the latest vogue word or to twist to new uses the vocabulary or modes of expression that have lately become current in other contexts—in short he is affected or pretentious, rather than fresh or lively.

Even if the Treasury cannot preserve the value of our currency, I wish that it could be relied upon not to debase the coinage of the English language. Why is it necessary to have a first-class honours degree to enter the Treasury if not to protect the English language?
I remind the House that, according to the Treasury, Scenario I was based on extrapolating recent trends and, as it said in its paper:
By historical standards, the average rate of GDP of about 3½ per cent. over a four year period is almost as fast a rate of growth as the fastest we have achieved in the past 20 years.
This aim is by no means a modest one. Scenario II, according to the Treasury.
differs from Scenario I in that sufficient improvement in industrial performance has been assumed to achieve an acceptable balance of payments and level of employment in 1979.
As I have already pointed out, these changes would require an unprecedented rate of growth in manufacturing output of 8 per cent. on average from 1975 to 1979.
The clue to the adoption of Scenario II is given in the statement made after the NEDC meeting on 4th August when it was stated:
The Council unanimously agreed that the first of the two scenarios presented in the current paper (based on no improvement in past performance) was unacceptable; and that only the second scenario provided for a sufficiently rapid return to full employment, based on the expansion of manufacturing industry through increased investment and higher productivity.
It must by now be evident that Scenario II was highly optimistic in its projections of future economic performance.
It seems that the Council's statement was really the Government's rejection of Scenario I because the Government did not like the consequences. That is rather like any one of us receiving a bank statement, particularly if we have an overdraft, and rejecting it because we do not like what it says. That is why I have described Scenario II as putting hope before experience.
I believe that the implication of accepting Scenario II was to nulify the whole exercise of providing guidelines about the future movement of the British economy up to 1980 in order to help individual industries and firms to plan ahead. Scenario II has failed to do this because


it has made unrealistic and unwarranted assumptions about the rate of improvement in our economic performance.
When I raised this matter, on 28th October, I quoted figures from the chemical industry, with which I am quite familiar. I remind the House what I said on that occasion:
Over the next four years, Scenario II involves an average growth rate in chemicals of 10·8 per cent. We are talking about a growth in chemical exports of 20 per cent. a year for each of the four years covered by Scenario II. That means in real terms a doubling of exports in four years."—[Official Report, 28th October 1976; Vol. 917, c. 815–6.]
To me this is pure fiction. The growth would be more than twice the rate of increase in world trade foreseen either by the OECD forecast or by the Treasury in its assumptions. I give that example to show that even on their own terms the Government started Scenario II with basic internal inconsistencies. Now at the turn of the year, it seems an even more improbable model for the years up to 1980 than it did in August.
I hope that I am not being an economic Scrooge, an old misery-monger, in criticising Scenario II as being an act of mythology rather than one of serious economic forecast. We now have the first year's results, and they bear out again our mistrust of Scenario II.
With the assistance of statisticians in the Library, I have re- worked out the Scenario II targets. I wanted to table my findings as a document in the debate so that hon. Members attending the debate could have it before them and go through it as I spoke. That, however, is an improper practice, as I am told. I sought the advice of the Clerks, who told me that only the Government could do that. There was no way in which I as an individual Member could do that, but I have photographed the table I have produced and I should be delighted to give a copy to any hon. Member after the debate if he meets me behind the Chair.
I have calculated, first, the rates of growth of all the industries covered in the Treasury models and obtained the figures which were originally worked out. I then took the figures of the targets set in Scenario II and the figures for the first year, 1975–76, which I obtained through parliamentary Questions. On

that basis I have worked out revised Scenario II targets which it would be necessary to reach in order to achieve the desired result.
The average rate of growth for all manufacturing industry for the years from 1971 to 1975 was 0·4 per cent. The Scenario II target was originally 7·9 per cent. But the rate of growth for the first year of Scenario II was not 7·9 per cent., but 0·8 per cent. That means that if we drop one year and if the figures are to be on target by 1980, the rate of growth in manufacturing industry for the next four years will have to be 9·7 per cent. I shall let the Minister of State have these figures afterwards. I do not expect him to comment on them off the cuff.
Let us then look at the key industrial sectors. Let us take mechanical engineering, the heart of industrial Britain. The rate of growth in that industry in 1971 to 1975 was 0·5 per cent. The Scenario II target as originally set was 7·4 per cent. The first year's result is not a rate of growth, but a reduction. It is minus 4·1 per cent. That means that the revised target will have to be 10·5 per cent. The situation is that mechanical engineering from 1971 to 1975 achieved a growth rate of 0·5 per cent. and it is expected from 1976 to 1980 to achieve a growth rate of 10·5 per cent. I do not think that I am being unfair when I insist that this is putting hope before experience.
Let us look now at electrical engineering. From 1971 to 1975 the growth rate was 2·7 per cent. The original target was 10·7 per cent. In the first year the rate of growth was minus 2·6 per cent. By simple arithmetic one can rewrite the target for the growth rate over the next four years to 14·3 per cent. This takes us into the world of mythology.
We move on to motor vehicles, another of our key industries. The rate of growth from 1971 to 1975 was minus 3·3 per cent. The Scenario II original target was 11·1 per cent. The rate of growth in the first year was 1·1 per cent. Therefore the revised target must be 13·8 per cent.
I hope that I have said enough to show how deceptively unrealistic these targets are. My conclusion is borne out very much by independent sources. The


December issue of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin bears out my view. Looking ahead to 1977 it says:
All in all, growth during the year ahead is now likely to be heavily dependent on exports and, to a much smaller extent, on stockbuilding and manufacturing investment; output can thus be expected to expand fairly slowly.
But Scenario II requires sensationally rapid expansion.
The National Institute has also produced some modest forecasts for the expansion of industry in 1977. However, this figure is of a growth rate of 3 per cent. I admit that it calculates this on the basis of the whole of industrial production, not simply of manufacturing output. The Minister and I know the distinction between the two.
If the Government really wish to help individual industries, and more especially individual firms, to increase exports and productivity, they should be prepared to offer advice on likely trends in three areas. These are the rate of inflation, the movement of sterling, and movements in interest rates. Individual firms have absolutely no control over these three variables, but they are vital in determining whether a firm makes a profit or loss in the export market. Without that knowledge a firm is in grave difficulty.
On the Friday before last I visited a firm in my constituency with an export record of more than 70 per cent. and expanding. I was asked just these questions. The firm was in the process of negotiating a fixed-price contract for equipment to be delivered to the Middle East, and some of it will not be delivered for two years. These are three areas of economic movement on which it wanted information and advice.
I suggest that if the Government and the Treasury wish to help industry on future predictions, these are the areas on which they should be giving advice. If things are going right, industry is perfectly capable of working out its own plans for expansion.
The other message that one gets loud and clear—I speak as someone who retains working connections in industry and commerce—is the constant plea for stability in the general environment set by the Government. Industry wants stability in taxation and, above all, in

general legislation. Without going into the merits of things, they plead for the Government not to keep changing the ground rules. Sometimes they put it rather bluntly, saying "Please get off our backs and let us get on with the job".
In the Government's efforts to effect national recovery, to work with the TUC and the CBI, will they please remember middle management? I speak as a middle manager. Please will they remember the works manager, the sales manager and the staff manager? They are at the sharp end where the action is. They have to implement all the decisions entered into at high level by the Government, the TUC and the CBI, even when they find that the decisions are either impracticable, unintelligible or sometimes simply nonsense. They take the can. but they are not consulted and they are taken for granted. To coin a phrase, they are the Third Man in industry. I invite the Government this Christmas to bring the Third Man in from out of the cold.
Finally, I return to the two models of Scenario I and II. I believe that it will take all our efforts and a run of good luck to achieve the Scenario I targets. Indeed, if world economic growth remains sluggish, or if our position in the world market deteriorates, as it so easily could, we may not be able to achieve even Scenario I.
It does not help our national recovery to persits in the illusion of Scenario II simply because life would be a great deal more comfortable for us, including above all the Government, if the Scenario II targets were achieved.
In my earlier speech on Scenario II, I described it as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. The House will recall that Tinkerbell continued to exist only as long as boys and girls continued to believe in fairies. I was too kind and gentle in that analogy. Scenario II is not Peter Pan. It is the end of Pagliacci—"La Commedia é finita".

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant God-man Irvine): As the Adjournment debates started late, the timings have had to be slightly altered to be fair to hon. Members who have later Adjournment debates. I hope that this debate will finish at 1.30 p.m. The second debate will take place from 1.30 p.m. to 2 p.m.,


and the third will take place from 2 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. The rest will remain as on the Order Paper.

1.12 p.m.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Denzil Davies): May I first of all congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price) for raising this subject on the day the House rises for the Christmas Recess. It is an extremely important topic, as he recognised in his speech, and there are considerable implications for British industry in general in getting these matters right.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for suggesting that perhaps I should not have to comment in detail on the figures he mentioned. We shall look at them and we shall try to get our economists with first-class honours degrees to look at them. I shall write to him and I shall do as much justice as I can to the figures he has mentioned.
Towards the end of his speech, the hon. Member said that what we need is stability. The Government do not deny this. This is part of the reason for our industrial strategy, for sitting down with the CBI and the TUC to create some stability in planning for industry. We recognise that the constant chopping and changing, whether in rates of taxation or methods of taxation—such as corporation tax—whether in the case of investment grants or allowances, constitutes a whole range of matters which disrupt industry. Constant changing does not help anyone to plan industry, whether public or private. I accept that entirely, and I hope that we have gone some way to try to create more stability.
The hon. Member asked if we could tell industry what would be the rate of inflation in one year's or three years' time or what would be the movement of sterling or interest rates. We accept entirely that these are important matters for any company which has to plan for two or three years and has to deliver orders during that period. I think the hon. Gentleman will be the first to recognise that no Government—especially with an economy such as the United Kingdom economy, which is so subject to the whims of world events and world trade and commodity prices—could possibly try to give target figures for these factors. It would be irresponsible to try to do so. The Government's policy is to try to

stabilise and bring down the rate of inflation. We consider that that is one of the most important tasks facing us.
The movement of sterling is governed to some extent by the rate of inflation, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate. Again, it is our desire to stabilise that movement, because we recognise that industry, especially those who have to export, must as far as possible have certainty in regard to import costs. Interest rates are part of that package and follow from the rate of inflation and the movement of sterling. The Government's desire is to see a gradual reduction in interest rates. One reason why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his package last week was to try to create situations in the financial markets that would gradually reduce interest rates. As the hon. Gentleman will recognise, interest rates are governed by the rate of inflation, and the Government cannot entirely control their movement.

Mr. David Price: The Minister of State will appreciate that it is really no good for the Press and Members of Parliament and the Government to lecture industry about not investing sufficiently when one has to borrow at 16 or 17 per cent. against a currency that is deteriorating at 14 or 15 per cent. a year. If we can get more stability, I think that we shall see the investment.

Mr. Davies: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point entirely. I think he also referred to a dismal scenario. Some might refer to it as a dismal silence. There is a school of economics which says that interest rates do not matter all that much. I always believed that they did matter, especially for medium-size and small companies. Maybe the multinationals are not affected by interest rates.

Mr. David Price: I confirm that the Minister is absolutely correct. Whatever may appear to academic economists, the fact is that in the real world, particularly in a medium-size company, one has to borrow. The rate at which one borrows is part of the cost of investment. It is as simple at that.

Mr. Davies: We always thought so as well, but there are theorists who argue differently.
At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Gentleman said that he thought the scenario was wrong and was far too optimistic and that we should not have put forward these figures in the first place. I remind him that Scenario II is not a target but a statistical exercise, although we have to have figures to try to carry out the underlying exercise. It is an attempt to get British manufacturing industry out of the "red" in which it has been since the war.
The basis of putting forward figures of acceptable balance of payment levels and acceptable rates of employment for 1979 was to try to sit down with industry and to say "If you want to achieve that situation, which we all want to achieve, this is what will have to be done". It is an exercise in realism. It is no good thinking that we shall arrive at the desirable situation of improving productivity in industry by fiscal or monetary measures or by fiddling around with exchange rates. The whole basis of Scenario II was to sit down with the TUC and the CBI and to say that we had got to get to that point.
The hon. Member referred to a person receiving his overdraft figures from the bank. That is a good analogy. However, if one receives high figures on a high overdraft, the right thing to do is to ask how those figures can be reduced by 1979–80. What can be done to reduce them? Instead of living in the hope that the figures will be reduced, Scenario II is an attempt at realism in industry and the country. There is a question of public education. This desirable situation will not be achieved by fiscal measures, by Keynesian economics. monetary economics or all the other theories of economics. It will be achieved only by sitting down and planning, in the sense of planning at the lowest level and not the highest, talking to both sides of industry, which want to improve and to get British industry back on its feet so that it can compete with the Germans, the French and the Japanese where it has been failing in the past.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that those figures were agreed and that the targets—if they are to be called targets; I do not like using that word—were

worked out with the chemical and the mechanical engineering industries. They are not arbitrary figures brought down from on high by the Government but are figures agreed with the sector working parties and with the particular industries, and the sector working parties are operating on that basis.

Mr. David Price: I think I am correct in saying that the targets for the chemical industry in the original copy of the scenario of 4th August were not agreed with the chemical sector working party.

Mr. Davies: I do not dispute what the hon. Gentleman has said. Obviously, he knows more about it than I do. My point was that these figures were not produced by the Government from on high to put before industrialists who were to be told "You have to get on and achieve this rate of growth." We said that this rate was desirable in the interests of achieving a proper balance of payments situation and an acceptable level of unemployment in 1979. We need to look at the problems of industry and the difficulties of arriving at that point.
It was always recognised that world trade might grow differently. I accept that when the medium-term industrial strategy was drawn up it was thought that world trade would increase at a faster rate than it has done. These matters are almost entirely outside our control. What is within our control—this is why the industrial strategy is important—is that many non-price factors are involved in the constraints on British industry. Why have we not been able to produce more? Why are our goods not competitive with those of Germany and Japan? What are the non-price elements involved? That is the important part of the industrial strategy, not the figures in Scenarios I or II. We need to sit down and work out at ground level, not on high, how we can improve the constraints which have inhibited British industry in the past from competing successfully.
I appeal to the hon. Gentleman not to put the figures first, as it were, but to look upon the statistics as a background or framework within which to work. It seems to me that this is the only way that we shall get British industry back on its feet. We cannot do it by a return to the completely free market system


which has been advocated by many Conservative Members. We may not be able to do it by having rigid planning from above in the way that the French did and were successful after the Second World War, because our national temperament and everything else are not equipped to do that. But, given that fact, I think that the only way to remove the constraints and improve the competitiveness of British manufacturing industry is by sitting down together in groups and considering product by product the quality of the goods which we are producing and putting on world markets. That is the object of an industrial strategy.
We accept that world trade will affect us. Inflation and all the other factors must be taken into account. But we should not be deflected from carrying on. There will not be a dramatic improvement next year. There will not be a dramatic announcement in three weeks to the effect that we have sorted out and solved the problems of British manufacturing industry. Part of people's impatience with the industrial strategy is that they expect dramatic announcements. It is all very well to announce a dramatic improvement in the balance of payments, but that does not mean that we have solved the problems of the British economy. They are more deep-seated than that. That is why the Government are embarking on this industrial strategy.
I hope that I have said enough to satisfy the hon. Gentleman on these matters. I do not know whether there are any other points that he wishes to raise.

Mr. David Price: There is one point which ties up with what the Minister said about trying to get a down-to-earth view product by product and sector by sector. Will he bring in the third man—middle management—from out of the cold? Middle management has a different view from the directors of companies whom he meets with the TUC at the NEDC.

Mr. Davies: I do not accept that the third man is out in the cold. We are well aware of the problems of middle management and of all sections of industry. There is the problem of incentives for skilled workers in industry. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that we wished to assist in creating greater incentives for people in

the middle bracket, whether they be called middle management or not, who may have been overlooked in the last few years. The Government give the highest priority to manufacturing industry because 80 per cent. of our exports come from that sector. Many people are employed in manufacturing industry. If our manufacturing industry goes downhill as fast as it has done over the last 10 years, there will be little hope in future of creating the kind of competitive growth economy which we all want to see.

CENTRAL LANCASHIRE NEW TOWN

1.24 p.m.

Mr. George Rodgers: I am grateful that Mr. Speaker has enabled this debate on the future of the Central Lancashire New Town to take place.
The new towns of post-war Britain have been amongst the most effective developments of their kind anywhere in the world. Our nation has successfully pioneered a positive approach to land planning and land assembly which has proved highly attractive to industrial and commercial developers. New town project have provided a better life for many thousands of people who previously lived in overcrowded areas. Thriving new communities have been established, and the programme is highly praised not only in this country but by a constant flow of visitors from abroad. Good standard accommodation which now houses three-quarters of a million people has been constructed in new towns. Some 18,000 firms have set up enterprises and brought over 160,000 jobs.
In short, the new town concept has demonstrated that the vision and boldness shown by the Labour Ministers in the Government of 1945 was rooted in sound common sense as well as political principle. The late Lewis Silkin, his successors, and disciples have influenced events and enriched lives in our community. In my view insufficient tribute has been paid to their achievements, though it is fair to add that others with differing political allegiances have contributed to the continuing success of the new town story.
My brief this afternoon is to focus attention on the Central Lancashire New


Town, though I hope that before too long we shall decide on a more attractive and appropriate title for the development. My purpose is to dispel any doubts, hesitations or misunderstandings that might be associated with its future. At present, we await a decision by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on the outline plan. The decision is long overdue. Indeed, it was expected that it would have been made about 12 months ago.
Perhaps I should make it clear that the situation is not that there has been an inquiry into whether there should be a new town or not. In fact, Central Lancashire received new town designation on 26th March 1970. The outline plan is about land assembly and land usage, but the delay in the outline plan decision is beginning to affect not just the activities of the Development Corporation but the natural momentum of development in the area.
The Central Lancashire area has proved remarkably resilient. Unemployment is consistently below the average for England and Wales and the North-West Region. Despite the recession, the Development Corporation has let virtually all the factories that it has built, and many under construction are pre-let. The British Aircraft Corporation's factories are flourishing, as are those of firms such as BTR and GEC. British Leyland truck and bus division has major plans for expansion in the pipeline, but the lack of a proper land use framework, which endorsement of the outline plan would provide, is beginning to inhibit a number of development proposals.
The paradoxical situation developing is that natural growth is being stifled in an area designated for accelerated growth. We just cannot afford, in the present economic situation and at a time when investment in new manufacturing industry is of the highest national importance, to allow delay over land use decisions to prevent vital new investment.
Another worrying effect of the delay is blight. The Development Corporation, in accordance with current practice, suggested a number of alternative routes for various roads. Inevitably, that kind of exercise creates a lot of uncertainty. It is likely to cause distress to individuals and

create difficulties in house sales and purchases. There is evidence that, with the long delay, the consequences of this uncertainty are becoming more serious and may well lead to very heavy financial claims on the Corporation. All this could be avoided by a decision on the plan. A decision on the plan is not, I believe, likely to create new public expenditure, but rather to reduce it.
Another area where uncertainty is creating problems is in relation to agriculture. The Development Corporation has a large land bank and some hundreds of farmers farm land owned by the Corporation. Until the land use pattern is established, the Corporation can give them only annual licences. Once it is known which land will not be required in the near future, these can be converted into tenancies giving the farmers more security. Approval of the outline plan will allow the Corporation to consider a programme of farm improvements.
Regrettably, I think that there has been a great deal of confusion over the nature of the outline plan. Too many people think that it was an inquiry into whether there should be a new town or not and that the Minister's endorsement will somehow create new expenditure commitments. This is just not the case. The Department has complete control over the resources that it allocates to development corporations whether they have approved outline plans or not.
The case for the Central Lancashire New Town is overwhelming. Household formation continues and whatever policy changes are made, the drift of population from the conurbations will continue and the chronic unemployment problems of areas such as Merseyside, which must be remedied, will not change overnight. We are living in a very hard world and it would be criminal folly to inhibit the development of prosperous areas such as those around Preston containing industries whose export performance is vital for national survival.
The Central Lancashire New Town can spearhead a revitalisation of the whole region as well as catering for spontaneous growth in the central area.
Of course, the Central Lancashire development offers a bonus over the green field sites which were the starting points for the earlier generation of new towns


as the scheme does not have to start from scratch. Thus advantage can be taken of the social capital that already exists in parts of the older towns. I have in mind particularly that older Chorley and Preston can be renewed as the new town areas are being developed.
Some steps towards urban renewal in the Chorley district are taking place, but a closer partnership between local authorities in the designated areas and the New Town Development Corporation must be created. One formula worthy of consideration is the introduction of joint staff working between borough and county councils and development boards. Progress has been made by an addition to the number serving on new town boards in order that members of local authorities can be accommodated. However, to some extent the formula is bedevilled by electoral changes and the fact that the nominees from the councils to the new town board do not directly represent the elected authorities. It should not be beyond our wit to devise an acceptable and democratic pattern of board membership.
There is a need, too, for a financial arrangment that will enable local authorities to meet the additional expense brought about by the new town undertakings. All the layers of local government welcome the impact of prosperity that will come from the advent of the CLNT. But it must be recognised that a development designed to superimpose a substantial new population on an existing community numbering 235,000 and living in an area covering 55 square miles, or 35,000 acres, will require good will, skill and financial ingenuity. Nevertheless, the fiscal consequences are trivial compared with the enormity of public spending that will be absorbed in tackling the problems of the inner cities. The new town programme can relieve many of these problems.
I should like to comment on the speech made in Manchester by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 17th September 1976. It was a first-class speech which presented the problems of the inner areas in lucid and decisive terms. Not surprisingly, sections of the Press misinterpreted it completely.
The Minister pointed out that most of those who have moved from the inner

cities have gone to existing towns. Only 11—4 per cent. of the 140,000 who left the conurbation of Merseyside between 1966 and 1971 moved to new towns elsewhere in the region. The figure for Greater Manchester was even smaller. Nor has there been a massive loss of jobs in the inner areas because firms have moved out. The greatest cause of job loss and industrial decline in the inner areas has been the contraction of firms, their extinction, through loss of markets, or an inability to sell their goods in current economic circumstances.
In any case, it is the policy of Government to back winners, and all industries and firms will make their location decisions according to which is likely to produce the best return. It would be incredible folly to obstruct successful industrial advance and investment in one area because of unrelated problems in another. The Secretary of State has never advocated such a hazardous policy, and the record should be put straight. Of course, there are massive difficulties in resolving the problems of inner city decay, and my right hon. Friend expressed his determination to tackle the grim situation. The strategy being applied to the London Dockland is an indication of his concern and urgency of approach. There must be no conflict between the new towns and the inner urban areas, both of which are aspects of overall industrial and economic policy.
It is reasonable to ask how I justify my absolute faith in the success of the Central Lancashire New Town. I am confident that the developments and benefits which have already been brought to Lancashire and which would not otherwise have taken place will convince those who have doubts that the nation has in-indeed backed a winner by launching this exciting venture in the North-West.
The Development Corporation's advance factory programme so far consists of 18 factories let and occupied, totalling 140,000 sq ft; a further eight factories completed, totalling 102,000 sq ft, of which three are let, but not yet occupied; an additional 11 factories under construction, of which, already three are agreed to be let; and 22 factory units totalling 137,000 sq ft in the planning and design pipelines—to ensure vital continuity of factory availability.
Factories constructed privately on Development Corporation land comprise


80,000 sq ft under construction, and 6,000 sq ft already built, with 3,000 sq ft extensions now planned.
The first of the Development Corporation's advance factories became available only some 10 months ago, and the Corporation has plans for a regular annual programme of factory building of at least 150,000 sq ft a year.
Companies which are already in occupation of new Corporation factories, or new factories on Corporation land, and those which have agreed leases but not yet occupied property, have an initial programme to provide 450 jobs. The companies estimate that expansion already foreseen will take that total to at least 600.
Of the factory jobs already created, over 400 come not simply from outside the new town area but either from outside the whole of the North-West Region, or, alternatively, represent brand new business ventures. This must represent one of the most valuable economic benefits which the new town can bring to the North-West. It is interesting to note that up-to-date figures contradict the theory that the CLNT is drawing and draining population from Merseyside. In fact, only 3·1 per cent. of the applications for housing emerge from Merseyside, while 7·1 per cent. are from the South-East Region.
In addition to factory jobs, the housing and civil engineering contracts generated by the Corporation are estimated to provide in excess of 1,000 jobs for construction trades workers, and with the Corporation's own staff and the indirect generation of new jobs caused by the additional wage and salary inputs, there can be no doubt that the Corporation's activities have already led to the creation of at least 2,000 additional jobs in the area. The Corporation has announced that its current level of industrial inquiries is running at a rate almost three times as high as that experienced in 1975.
The Corporation is making a general contribution to the prosperity of not only the designated area but the county as a whole. There is plenty of evidence of beneficial spin-off in the surrounding towns. While movement of industry and people within the county cannot be prevented,

the Corporation's primary concern is with new growth. Lancashire must compete with other regions and, indeed, countries for new industrial growth. It cannot afford not to maximise the attractions of the best strategic areas.
Before assembling the material for this debate, I spoke to trade union officers and members. I held conversations with local authority officials in the designated area and with leading local industrialists. I exchanged views with the editor of the Chorley Guardian and representatives of the Lancashire Evening Post. So far as was possible in the limited time available, I endeavoured to secure the views of a wide section of the concerned community. Without exception there was approval and enthusiasm for the new town. Naturally some suggested that the programme could be spread over a longer period. One or two proposed that the Runshaw district, on an attractive undulating feature, should be preserved. Indeed, the editor of the Chorley Guardian is conducting a campaign to secure allies to preserve that area of land. But all preferred a planned and co-ordinated development, rather than the squalid sprawl that has scarred so many towns in Lancashire.
It is vitally important that the bus and truck division of British Leyland—the prosperous end of the enterprise—should receive the go-ahead for its extension programme, which will include an assembly hall, a foundry, research facilities, new test beds, and new jobs for some 2,000 workers. This programme is dependent on the provision of essential road links to the motorway system as shown in the outline plan.
I quote a letter that I have received from the Chief Executive Officer of the South Ribble Borough Council, which demonstrates the anxiety felt in the area of the delay in announcing a decision.
The problems for South Ribble because of the delay in the Secretary of State's decision, are far more acute in my view than anywhere else within the designated area, because of the Truck and Bus Division of British Leyland's proposals to invest a further £35 million in new facilities for Research and Development assembly etc., for the launching of a new truck early in the 1980s to compete with the world market.
Critically linked to this development is the construction of the Farington Link Road to


provide improved access facilities to the new assembly hall etc.
In addition the future development of existing 'white area' land could be inhibited in connection with this development, also because of the delay by the Secretary of State. It is also true to say that other significant developments may well be adversely affected because of the then lengthier planning proceedures and the absence of the Outline Plan, involving Public Inquiries. Other significant developments that could well be affected in the centre of Leyland for the first and second phases of the Town Centre development not only to serve existing population but on possible projected development. Other urban redevelopments by large private investors are also critically linked to the Secretary of State's decision on the Outline Plan".
I received that letter only last Friday.
The BTR company has demolished existing buildings to facilitate the construction, but the new development which would provide industrial opportunities, employment prospects and housing construction hinges on the long-awaited decision on the outline plan. There is considerable expense involved in the conduct of public inquires, which have become necessary only because of the long delay. Many of the inquiries are in fact a repetition of inquiries which took place when the outline plan was originally submitted.
Around the perimeter of the new town boundary there is an area of planning blight between two and five miles wide. Activity in this zone is stultified as all proposed development must be referred to the new town corporation which cannot respond adequately in the absence of a firm decision by the Minister.
It is appreciated that economic circumstances might mean a change in the pace of the programme and in the scale of development. However, it appears that there are no powers to wind up a development corporation before it has substantially completed its task. That would require an Act of Parliament. The confirmation of the order would be enormously helpful. Certainly the announcement will stimulate investment, industrial activity, and job opportunities.
In view of the importance of an early and favourable decision to the economic wellbeing of the whole of the North-Western Region, I look to my hon. Friend who will answer the debate to enlighten the House on the Government's intentions. His recent visit to Central Lancashire did much to encourage the

enthusiastic but somewhat bewildered staff at the new town headquarters. A positive response will also have the effect of dissolving doubts and suspicions amongst the many who are eager to see a generating of prosperity in a region that has more than its share of environmental and industrial problems.

1.42 p.m.

Mr. Edward Gardner: I congratulate the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Rodgers) on his selection of subject for this Adjournment debate and I am pleased to have the opportunity of taking part in it.
The hon. Member said that the staff of the Central Lancashire New Town were bewildered by the delays that we are now suffering. The people who live within and just outside the boundaries, as they are likely to be, are also bewildered. I hope that the Minister fully understands that the delay in this case of making known the decisions on the future of the new town, in the view of those suffering from the delay, is unreasonable and intolerable.
Their anxiety is the anxiety of people who want to know what will happen to their individual futures and to the future of this area, which is vital to Lancashire and to the whole country. By Written Question, I asked when the Minister would make up his mind. He was good enough to give me a reply on Monday of this week, saying that I would have a reply on the decision as soon as possible. Why can we not have an answer today? Why can we not know today the future of the new town? That would be a Christmas message to cheer us up. These people are distressed. They are suffering from blight on their land and from an inability to make their personal and vital plans for the future.
I am sure that most hon. Members will share the great respect and admiration—and, indeed, friendship—that I feel for the Chairman of the Central Lancashire New Town Corporation, Sir Frank Pearson. However, after some reflection and experience, I would say responsibly that I do not think that he is always well served by those officials with the duty of meeting and negotiating with members of the public.
When I came to the constituency and fought the 1970 General Election I found


many people who, if not enthusiastic, were not openly hostile to the concept of the new town. Now, in places like Penwortham, Grimsargh and Haighton, I find hardly a friend of the Central Lancashire New Town. If there are people there who support it, I have the greatest difficulty in finding them.
The Corporation, like all others, is an unelected and undemocratic body which, provided that it stays within the strict but wide limits of the law, can behave as autocratically as it likes. It therefore has a particular duty to be sensitive to the aspirations and ambitions of those who live within its boundaries. Instead, my constituents complain, with a frequency which is becoming extraordinary, about what they call the ham-fisted approach of officials.
Reflecting my constituents' views, as I am seeking to do, I would say that in Penwortham, where the Corporation is putting up houses of a character that they do not like, and in Grimsargh and Haighton, where people believe—I think rightly—that the land should be left for agriculture, they are depressed by the thought that they can no longer rely on the Corporation to act on their wishes. They must therefore look to the Government to see that, for example, development in Penwortham is restricted and ultimately brought to a stop and that Grimsargh and Haighton are not left within the boundaries of the new town.

1.49 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Guy Barnett): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Rodgers) for raising this subject and for the interesting speech he made about the Central Lancashire New Town. I am also grateful for the contribution made by the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner). Many of the points made have a bearing upon the Development Corporation's outline plan, which is, of course, formally before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his decision. As hon. Members will appreciate, in these circumstances I must refrain from commenting on the merits of any of the arguments put forward that reflect upon features of the outline plan.
I understand the points made by my hon. Friend and the hon. and learned Gentleman about the consequences of delay, and I assure them that I have taken careful note of everything that has been said in the debate. I shall consider each individual point, although I hope it is understood that I cannot comment on many of them now.
I can well understand the frustration arising from the delay in an announcement about the future of the new town—frustration felt not only by industrialists who want to expand in the area but also by people who might be affected by the various development proposals in the outline plan and by the Development Corporation's as yet unconfirmed compulsory purchase orders.
In the light of what has been said, I should explain the reasons for that delay. The outline plan necessarily has to be considered in the context of future policy for new towns as a whole. Following the speech about inner cities made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment in Manchester on 17th September, a reappraisal of the rôle of new towns is taking place as part of a review of the policies which, since the war, have favoured dispersal of population from the inner areas of our conurbations. I am sure my hon. Friend and the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that such a reappraisal is timely. It is a recognition of the country's changing needs and in particular of the special problems facing inner cities. This review is being undertaken with all possible speed, but by its very nature the subject is extremely complex and wide in its scope—particularly as it is necessary to include a look at the factors that have led to the voluntary and unplanned exodus, which accounts for more than 90 per cent. of those leaving the conurbations, as well as the remaining part of it which has been planned to go to our new and expanding towns.
This is a complex subject and it will inevitably take a considerable time to examine and consider properly the range of options which are available for the future. Thereafter interlocking decisions will have to be made, and it will therefore not be possible to make any announcement before the new year.
As my hon. Friend will recall—because we met there—I visited Central Lancashire New Town in the autumn and was able to see for myself the excellent results that the Development Corporation was already achieving. In addition to the dwellings already completed, there are about 1,600 for rent under construction, with a sizeable number also being built for sale on the Corporation's land. I was struck by the great care with which these new housing developments have been planned and by the thought that has gone into landscaping and tree planting and by the pleasing designs of the individual dwellings. I visited one estate which enormously impressed me, and I feel sure that the people moving into that estate will be very pleased with the houses they inhabit.
I was particularly impressed with the rapid progress that is being made on the Development Corporation's first employment area at Walton Summit, where 26 advance factories have been let and others are under construction. There is a distinct air of success suffusing the entire development. The firms that had taken the factories were clearly being given every possible assistance by way of well-designed premises in a thoughtfully-planned environment, close to good-quality housing for the people who work in them.
I strongly believe that this style of development gives industrial firms the best possible chance to succeed, which is crucial at a time when industrial performance and regeneration are so vitally important in reducing unemployment and securing our economic growth.
Incidentally, some local authorities have also demonstrated what can be achieved by good planning that pays attention to economic and industrial needs. I have no doubt that the experience and expertise in this area of the new town movement will be of great value to the country in the future.
My hon. Friend mentioned the expansion plans of British Leyland within the new town. The Government are, of course, fully aware of what is proposed and, indeed, I discussed the matter with the personnel director of Leyland's Bus and Truck Division during my visit. I appreciate the importance to the company of an early decision on the outline

plan in order to facilitate consideration of the necessary applications for planning consent which it will be making. Its personnel director also impressed upon me the contribution that the Development Corporation could make by providing the necessary infrastructure for the expansion and the housing for the extra workers that the company will need to take on in due course. These points are being borne in mind.
During my visit I also saw the older parts of the designated area of the new town—mainly those in Preston and Chorley—and heard about pilot schemes for urban renewal being drawn up jointly by the Development Corporation and the local authorities. I was very interested in these, particularly as I had not previously seen for myself the degree to which the new town has its own problems bequeathed from its past industrial history.
I cannot say to what extent the Development Corporation might be able to help with implementing such schemes, but the preparatory work has clearly been most fruitful in producing some imaginative plans—which, I might add, provide a good example of what can be achieved by local authorities and a development corporation working together harmoniously.
As my hon. Friend and the hon. and learned Gentleman know, I met members and officers of the Lancashire County Council and Chorley, Leyland and South Ribble Borough Councils. While they might have differences of emphasis, I was struck by the fact that the four local authorities spoke with one voice in commending the Development Corporation's activities.
The hon. and learned Member for South Fylde paid tribute to Sir Frank Pearson, and I echo his remarks. I noted that the hon. and learned Gentleman was critical of certain aspects of the staff and the Corporation's work. If he wishes to bring to my attention by correspondence any special points, I shall of course go into them, but I hope that he will also bring those matters to the notice of Sir Frank or of the general manager.
I recognise that there are difficulties. A new town development corporation by its very nature has to be authoritarian; that has always been a problem. I like to describe the relationship between district councils and development corporations as


a possible situation for creative tension. Inevitably there are differences of emphasis, but I was struck by the commendation received by the Development Corporation from the representatives of the various councils whom I met. I was impressed by their unity and strength of feeling, and their views have certainly been taken on board.
My hon. Friend referred to the need for better representation on the board of members of local authorities. I discussed this matter with representatives of the local authorities during my visit to Central Lancashire in October. I am sympathetic to many of the views that they expressed—which my hon. Friend has echoed—and will bear them in mind when reviewing the membership of the board once the decision on the outline plan has been announced. The passing of the New Towns (Amendment) Act a few weeks ago provides powers to increase membership of the board if necessary and, therefore, it will be possible for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to appoint more local authority members if he so decides.
The central position of the new town and its good accessibility should make the area extremely attractive to industry. The North-West new towns have had a good record of attracting into the area firms which otherwise might have gone elsewhere. Sixty per cent. of firms in the North-West new towns have been brought in from outside the region, yet all their development, which has taken place in a relatively short space of time, has been comprehensively planned so as to protect the very environment the newcomers are seeking.
These achievements by the North-West new towns mirror those of the other new towns in this country. I was glad that my hon. Friend paid tribute to the new town movement and to the memory of the late Lewis Silkin. Many people see the new towns, as I do, as one of the outstanding British success stories in the planning field since the war. They have provided wide opportunities to plan on an imaginative and comprehensive basis,

and the various development corporations have done an excellent job.
I do not pretend that mistakes have not been made. Some of the design concepts have not proved popular. But over 1 million people now live in our new towns and the vast majority of them are well contented with their new way of life. I need hardly remind hon. Members, however, that planning must be flexible, and flexibility can be achieved only if adequate steps are taken to measure or monitor the changing scene, so that adjustments can be made as soon as it becomes apparent that the framework is no longer fully adequate.
While the Government continue to recognise the value of new towns as an instrument of wider social, housing, employment and regional policies, it is surely right to see them in the context of the development of the regions in which they are set and to see them in thier relationship to the changing problems of the major cities on which those regions are centred. These are the reasons why we have set in hand the reviews mentioned earlier. Each new town's programme will be carefully re-examined to take account of the changes in circumstances, including the latest demographic forecasts, estimates of future local housing demand and trends in the supply of mobile employment. But I emphasise that there will be no abrupt reversal of plans and certainly no decision to close a new town without the fullest consultation with all the local authorities directly concerned.
To sum up, the Central Lanacshire Development Corporation has already made a significant contribution and is doing excellent work in developing the new town. I cannot give hon. Members a firm date for a decision on the outline plan as this is now being considered within the context of new towns policy as a whole. I can, however, give an assurance that the progress towards that decision is being pursued with the maximum of speed so as to enable an announcement to be made as soon as possible.

NATIONAL SAVINGS MOVEMENT

Mr. Speaker: I remind hon. Members that this debate will finish at 2.30 p.m.

2.2 p.m.

Mr. Edward du Cann: I am pleased, for several reasons, to have the opportunity of raising this most important subject.
First, all my life I have been a supporter of the national savings movement. I am aware of the imperfection, of national savings as a pure savings medium. It is all too easy to be cynical about them and to describe them merely as cheap Government finance. I should know those imperfections well enough, because my commercial career has been chiefly devoted to the savings industry, for example, in establishing the modern unit trust movement and introducing to the United Kingdom the unit-linked life assurance concept—a development which is still largely underestimated—and the rescue and development of a life assurance company. I am proud of my connection with that commercial company and declare my interest.
I have had a lifetime's practical experience of commercial savings of all, kinds but I am proud to be associated with the national savings movement. For many years I have been involved at first hand with its efforts to popularise thrift—and how successful it has been, with £12,000 million invested; to encourage savings among all classes of our fellow citizens of all ages, from the youngest to our most senior citizens; to teach money management to those who might otherwise not learn about it and be very much the poorer, in every sense of the word, in consequence. It is good work the Movement does; it is worthy and valuable work. It should continue with every encouragement from the House.
Some of the details are impressive. There are no fewer than 30,000 workers' groups involving 2 million members. One in 10 of all workers save regularly through the national savings movement, and last year they raised no less than £350 million. There is also the work in schools. There is, properly on the part of the teaching profession, a great demand for educational work in money matters. A need is fulfilled here. There are 18,000 school savings groups, involving 1·3 million young people.
However, it is not only money that we are talking about; much more important, we are talking about the social purpose of the movement—and how excellent and significant that social purpose is, and how well it is fulfilled.
The work of the movement is carried through with devotion, skill and patience, and often with much personal sacrifice on the part of individuals, in terms of time and treasure. This is a dedicated corps of volunteers—no fewer than 70,000 of them. They are aided, abetted and guided by a small team of civil servants who are as conscientious and enthusiastic as their fellow workers in the movement.
As a former vice-president of the Somerset and Wiltshire Trustee Savings Bank, until that local and efficient institution—well managed by citizens of repute and competence, my friends and neighbours—was forcibly and, in my view, unnecessarily merged into a more anonymous West Country bank, as president of the Taunton Deane National Savings Association, and, last but by no means least, if the Minister of State will not think me immodest, as a former Treasury Minister responsible for sponsoring the Trustee Savings Bank Cheques Act—the first development in the work of trustee savings banks in 20 years or so—naturally I have a real interest in and anxiety about the future of the national savings movement.
Second, being in touch with grass roots opinion, with the voluntary workers, I am only too well aware that the Government's proposals for the future, namely, the decision to remove the Civil Service supporting staff—a decision that was made without any warning or consultation with the movement, and that was inexcusable—are a source of genuine and deep concern in the movement. The Chairman described the decision as "incredible—a great shock". The decision was bad, foolish and unwise.
The concern of the voluntary workers cannot and should not be underestimated. "Concern" is, in some part, perhaps, too mild a word, for many people feel, besides uncertainty, a degree of irritation and resentment that it should be proposed that their unselfish efforts should be rewarded—if that is the right word—by a withdrawal of support—and in Jubilee Year, and after the commotion caused by the withdrawal of the savings stamp. My hon. Friend the


Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) well knows about that, for he played a part in leading a deputation to Ministers. After all that turmoil, this new trouble has happened.
Accordingly, it is proper that this subject should be raised in Parliament, and I repeat my gratitude to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to raise it after sending you a number of requests. The movement should be aware that we in Parliament are appreciative of its members' work and sensible of their interests. Many of us care about them and their work, and care deeply, and I am sure that the Minister, for whom I have a warm personal regard—I am grateful to him for being present to answer this debate—will wish to associate himself with that tribute and sentiment.
We are all familiar with the ritual genuflexion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the direction of the movement in his annual Budget speeches—of which we have had nine in just over two years. I hope that it is not now an insincere affair. We are familiar, too, with other repeated specific pledges—time does not allow me to quote them all —of "full Government backing" for the movement, which have fallen from the lips of successive Ministers. The Government must keep their word in this 60th anniversary year of the movement. They have been trusted by the House of Commons and by the movement to do so.
Let me come to certain specific questions which are in the minds of the workers in the movement. We all want public expenditure to be controlled. There is no stronger advocate of that than I, unless I do myself an injustice, unless my stronger view is that we should obtain value for money. Never mind. The question is why this particular economy should be made. Why should this economy of only some £2 million, involving only 580 civil servants, have priority, particularly as it followed the decision of an earlier Chancellor to reject the recommendations of the Page Committee?
Why should there be this cut-off of what is, after all, the most popular national savings body? Should not the House, and Ministers do everything possible to encourage the voluntary spirit? Should we not do all we can to help the people's savings facilities, which is what the

national savings business is? It is the most convenient savings medium of its sort. It serves the small saver. Surely a most curious methods of cutting the amount of money that the Government need to borrow is to sack the 583 people who are out there helping the Chancellor to borrow it. What is the logic of this. What incontrovertible justification is there for this step? I hope that we shall hear it.
Let us hear, for example, why depriving the national savings movement of support is a proper contribution towards making the economies that we must have. I want to hear why Ministers think it right to endanger the largest voluntary movement of its kind in the world. I want to hear why it is thought sensible, in the opinion of the Cancellor, to endanger a movement that encourages thrift and reduces the amount that the Government have to extract or extort in tax. I want to know why it is believed to be wise policy to endanger a movement which has increased national savings by some £900 million in the past year—10 per cent. of the public sector borrowing requirement, which is not a bad return for the outlay of about £2 million. If I did that commercially, I should be pleased and proud.
On the face of it—and it is the time for truth—there can be only one explanation; that this decision is a decision basically to abandon the voluntary effort, a decision by Ministers that they will be careless of it, a decision, in effect, to nationalise the industry.
Are there no better economies that could be made? I do not believe that there are not. I want to make some suggestions. As the Minister knows, I have the honour to be the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The hon. and learned Gentleman was a most distinguished colleague on that Committee. No one was more assiduous, careful and incisive in questioning than he was. I regretted his promotion in one way because it prevented him from still being there to do a remarkable job. He therefore knows that there are other choices.
During this year, the Committee examined 43 subjects. From that list, I can suggest at least half a dozen alternative sources of equal or much larger savings. For example, there is the aid to industry—the shipbuilding industry has received between £80 million and £100 million. Let us take the aid to other


commercial enterprises, which totals twice, three times, four times, even 10 times the amount that is being saved here. Let us take the report that the Committee made about the Inland Revenue. On 1st April 1975, it had a staff of 74,000. On 1st April 1976 the figure was 81,000. It is estimated that on 1st April 1977 it will be up to 90,000, if there is no change in the question of personal tax allowances. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) has pointed out that if we made only those changes in the system which would be easy to make, and which would not involve great loss of revenue, at least 20,000 staff would be saved.
Let us take the Manpower Services Commission. There, the number of civil servants between 1974 and 1976 increased by 37 per cent.—from 33,000 to 46,000—and the budget has gone up from £96 million in 1974–75 to £424 million this year.
I take these examples deliberately because I want it understood that there is plenty of scope for other savings that would do no harm. I dare say that hon. Members could suggest other and better economies, as alternatives. I am sure that people in the national savings movement could equally readily do so.
There is, I can assure the Minister, no resistance among the voluntary workers to sensible change. The successful adoption of its new constitution and the restructuring of the voluntary movement are sufficient and clear evidence of that.
Let me be plain. I am clear in my own mind—as I believe would be the majority of hon. Members on both sides of the House, as this is not a party matter—that the Government are making a mistake. It is only the high patriotism and sense of duty of these 70,000 voluntary workers that is precluding a shoal of protests falling on hon. Members and Ministers from millions of savers at this decision.
The movement is especially lucky in having so remarkably high a calibre of leadership at all levels—distinguished men like Sir John Anstey and Lord Elgin in Scotland, where there is a fine tradition of leadership, and, in the South-West, people like Francis Showring and Roy Walwin, together with conscientious people on the professional staff, including the Secretary and Chief Commissioner, Mr. Kenneth Pinch and Mr. Nicholas.
I believe that this true devotion caused the decision to set up the Radice Committee. I knew Mr. Radice well, and admired his work greatly when I was at the Treasury. In a week or two, that committee will come forward with its recommendations. I hope that the Minister of State is able to give an unqualified assurance that the Government will accept and give support to them. I would prefer him to do more—to tell the House that he is willing to say that the decision to make this saving is to be re-examined.
I am sure that the decision is wrong in every sense. This national savings movement of ours is a great national asset. It has a proud and honourable record. It is a most significant body. It provides an invaluable service. It is totally relevant to the needs of modern society. Not least a duty we have in Parliament is to give it generous and committed support, and I hope most devoutly that the outcome of this debate will be to enable us to give such support.

2.17 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) for allowing me time to intervene. I raised the subject of national savings and the national savings stamp as long ago as November 1974, when the first announcement was made. I have had an active interest in national savings for more than 30 years, in running a national savings group, as a member of the board of the London and South-Eastern Bank until it was amalgamated, and as a member of the Trustee Savings Bank Parliamentary Committee. I have an interest in the voluntary savings movement.
What the Chancellor is doing here runs counter to the Page Report. While that report was good, it did not give sufficient emphasis to the value of the voluntary effort in the movement. But that voluntary effort cannot exist without the professional back-up that it has had for so many years. The cut-off of the national savings stamp and now the removal of professional help will have far-reaching effects and will mean an inevitable drop in the amount of money that national savings collects. Subsequent Chancellors of the Exchequer will regret this step, which also means the


death knell of many groups and committees aimed at both the old and the young.
I want to emphasise one point made by my right hon. Friend. The savings habit instilled by national savings groups may of itself, in terms of actual cash, mean little for the Treasury, but it starts a lifetime's habit of thrift and saving. If one does not start young enough to learn the habit of saving it may not come later in life. That is the major crime of which the Chancellor will be guilty if he allows the national savings movement to be deprived of its professional staff. There is no call in this sense for extra public expenditure but there is a call for reallocation by a cost-benefit analysis.
I believe that any examination on that basis would come up with the answer that the support staff ought to go on. I therefore join my right hon. Friend in urging the Minister even at this late stage to reconsider the decision, because I believe that, if the national savings movement is deprived of the permanent staff—civil servants who have done such loyal work—in 12 months' time, if and when the present Chancellor produces his eleventh, or twelfth, or thirteenth Budget, he will have to say that the level of national savings is no longer as great as he would wish. Let us hope that there will be a new Chancellor by then, coming from this side of the House, but the present Chancellor alone will have to take the blame.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Denzil Davies): Both the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) and the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) have, as they have indicated, shown great interest in the national savings movement. The right hon. Gentleman has devoted most of his life in one way or another to fostering savings in general, be it through the unit trust movement or the national savings movement. I accept entirely his great expertise and knowledge in this field. The hon. Gentleman has also shown great interest in these matters.
The national savings movement, as hon. Gentlemen will accept, is more than a voluntary movement. I say that in no derogatory sense. It is a partnership of national savings, the Trustee Savings Banks and the voluntary movement. We

are concerned here with the withdrawal of the 560 or so civil servants employed by the Government as support staff for the voluntary movement.
The right hon. Gentleman talked of an attack on the national savings movement. I am sure he will agree that this is not an attack on the movement, in the sense that all outlets are still there for saving. The concern here is with the voluntary movement, which I think—the hon. Member for Hampstead accepted this—has possibly not contributed as much as the other outlets to the total of £12,000 million. I do not criticise them or denigrate what they have done, but I think this would be generally accepted. The very nature of the movement is such that it cannot contribute as much.
One of its main functions, I concede, has been in thrift education. This is very important. I shall come back to the Radice Committee shortly. There should be a continual education of children especially in thrift. It is important that this should be done by a movement of this kind, and I accept that that has been its main contribution in recent years.
The right hon. Gentleman asked why we had to do it. We had to do it because we are constantly asked to reduce the bureaucracy. I do not mean the bureaucracy of national savings, but Government bureaucracy. The right hon. Gentleman is Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—I served on it under him—and he will know that we have been asked to reduce current expenditure on the bureaucracy. I remind the House that the withdrawal of 570 support staff was part of a decision by the Government to effect a reduction of 26,000 in the Civil Service in general. We were not singling out the voluntary movement. This has to be seen in the context of a reduction in savings of about £95 million and a reduction of 26,000 in total in central Government bureaucracy. The 570 support staff were part of that decision.
It does not emanate from the Page Report or from anything except a need—which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman recognises—to do something to keep down the growth of the bureaucracy. It is easy to state that principle but very difficult to apply the priorities without hurting different sections and different areas. Unfortunately, the Government had to make a decision and look at all Departments.
We might be asked why we did not take a bit more off the Inland Revenue or the Department of Industry. The right hon. Gentleman will know that these matters are considered in great detail and that at the end of the day a view has to be formed as to the priorities of the contribution made in the particular area in which we want savings. It was against that background that we had to withdraw the support staff.
It is not part of an attack on the voluntary movement. It is part of a much larger problem of containing the growth of the bureaucracy. It would be wrong for me to hold out any hope that the decision can in any way be reversed. The Prime Minister wrote to Sir John Anstey on 5th August 1976 stating that he was afraid there was no scope for reconsideration. Lord Elgin, in Scotland, had been informed in exactly the same terms.
I pay tribute to Sir John Anstey and to Lord Elgin. It has been a very difficult time for them. I understand their feelings very well and the great difficulty of having a decision foisted upon them without prior consultation. I accept that there was no prior consultation. The reason is that this was a decision in total on £95 million taken at the highest level of Government. In those circumstances it was not possible to have consultation, although afterwards I saw both of them and also the staff side. I appreciate entirely their difficulty, and I pay my tribute to them for the responsible way in which they have accepted this blow. Through the Radice Committee and the committee in Scotland, they got down to trying to see how the voluntary movement can manage in the new difficult situation brought about by the withdrawal of the support staff.
It will not be easy. The Radice Committee was not set up to shun the problem. It is difficult to see how the voluntary movement can operate in future, but I hope that both committees will bring forward recommendations early in the new year. We shall look at them, but I cannot make any commitment from the Dispatch Box this afternoon before I know what is recommended.
We did not like taking this decision, which is one of the many difficult decisions that the Government had have to take. It gave me and the other Ministers

no pleasure to have to take it, but we were faced with a difficult situation. The national savings movement as widely defined will continue to make an enormous contribution to Government finance. I do not believe that at the end of the day the movement will be damaged by this very difficult period of restructuring.

Mr. du Cann: Before the Minister sits down, may I press him a little more on the subject of the Radice Committee? He must know by now the general outlines of the likely report. Is it possible for him to be a little more forthcoming about accepting the recommendations, even though I tell him that many of us will be pressing him to go a good deal further and to overturn the original decision?

Mr. Davies: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know what the general lines of the recommendations of the committee are likely to be. That is not a diplomatic ministerial answer but a fact. When we have the recommendations, however, we shall look at them.

TROON HARBOUR

2.27 p.m.

Mr. David Lambie: I want to correct a mistake in the Order Paper. The debate today is about a proposed marina, not a marine development, at Troon Harbour.
I am initiating the debate in association with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), and also the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), who have constituency interests in this proposal and who I hope will participate in the debate.
I am also glad to see on the Front Bench today my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office, because his Department could have some responsibility in the future of this development, alongside the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, who has the initial responsibility in this matter.
Troon Harbour is owned and controlled by the small docks section of the British Transport Docks Board. For over 20 years Troon Cruising Club, with 300 members, owning 170 boats, has been the tenant of the inner harbour area under


a short-term lease from the Docks Board. At the beginning of 1972 Troon Cruising Club tried to negotiate a long-term lease with Captain R. J. Nicholls, the Docks Manager and Harbour Master at Troon, acting on behalf of the Docks Board.
At a meeting held on 29th March 1972, to discuss the club's future, Captain Nicholls agreed to look into the matter further and, if possible, to offer a longterm lease. The result of these negotiations was a three-year agreement containing a six-months' terminal clause on either side. In all these negotiations on a longterm lease the representatives of the Docks Board had always given the impression that the area was for sale, and that is why a lease for more than three years could not be given to the club.
Just before the reorganisation of Scottish local government, Troon Town Council, in association with the then Ayr County Council, started negotiations with the Docks Board to buy the inner harbour at Troon and eventually to develop the area as a public marina. This project had the full support of the members of Troon Cruising Club and the whole community. Everyone believed that a development financed by public money would provide facilities within the means of the average person.
These negotiations for a public marina collapsed following the reorganisation of local government, as the new councils rightly needed time to establish themselves and to look at the projects being carried out by the former councils.
On 17th September 1975, following the collapse of the public marina project, the club again asked that the tenancy agreement that they had negotiated previously with the Docks Board be extended. These negotiations were proceeding, but suddenly, a year later, to everyone's surprise—in September 1976—the local newspaper the Troon and Prestwick Times carried an exclusive front-page article announcing a private marina development at Troon.
According to the report the Docks Board agreed to lease on a long-term basis the inner harbour to a developer, Mr. Robin Knox-Johnston, who was prepared to invest £500,000 in the project. The development would start immediately, the local newspaper informed us

in order to be ready for the summer session in 1977. The cost of mooring a 30-ft boat in the proposed marina would be about £300 a year, compared with the present charge of £10 from Troon Cruising Club. The members of the club were told to remove their boats by the end of the year in spite of their lease not terminating until May 1977 at the earliest.
After a meeting with the officials and committee of Troon Cruising Club I contacted Mr. Peter Murdoch, manager of the small docks section of the Docks Board, and subsequently had a meeting in the House with Mr. J. K. Stuart, the managing director of the Docks Board. Neither could explain why no consultation whatever had taken place with the present leaseholders.
It was my impression that the Board thought that the lease could be terminated at one month's notice and that Troon Cruising Club, in spite of over 20 years' experience in this area, had no rights whatever. Since that time officials of the Docks Board have used every legal advice and threat to get the members of the cruising club out of the inner harbour by the end of the year. They have bullied and abused, and used jackboot methods. Even an Act of 1847 was invoked.
In fact, arising out of this Act, Troon Cruising Club went before the court last week and had an interim interdict continued until the beginning of January to prevent the Docks Board from removing the boats from the inner harbour. In granting the continuation the sheriff said that he hoped this would allow discussions to be held between both parties.
On 13th December I asked to meet Sir Humphrey Brown, the Chairman of the British Transport Docks Board. I asked him to receive a deputation consisting of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock, the hon. Member for Ayr and myself to discuss the position of the Docks Board and to try to get some settlement.
As you will understand, Mr. Speaker, from your own background in Wales, there was a lot of public unrest about what the Docks Board was trying to do. Two days later Mr. Stuart replied that further meetings were unlikely to be productive. This was the first time, in my


experience as an MP, that officials of a public body—or even a private firm—had refused to meet a deputation of MPs consisting of such people as the former Secretary of State for Scotland and a member of the Shadow Cabinet.
We wanted to enter into a discussion with the board, but this discussion was refused, according to the information that we received from Mr. Stuart. That is why this Adjournment debate is taking place today.
I should like some answers from the Minister, because no matter what he says he is the person who was finally responsible for the actions of this public body. I want to know why the lease was given to Mr. Robin Knox-Johnston and his associates without informing the present leaseholders. Why is the docks board now giving a long-term lease to private developers when for years it has refused to consider a similar lease to Troon Cruising Club?
People in the area are beginning to wonder whether there is some collusion between the developers and officials of the Docks Board. I hope that we shall get answers to these questions today.

2.36 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: My justification for speaking is that many of my constituents are members of the Troon Cruising Club, and have been for a long time. Troon is only 6½ miles from Kilmarnock and about 8 or 9 miles from Ayr, where I live. I know the place. I do not know when Mr. Robin Knox-Johnston discovered Troon, but I would think that it was more recently than my constituents and the people who are exercising their concern at present.
I have seen a delegation from them and I have been in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie). I have never known a public body, or anyone representing a public body, to act in such an outrageous way. From start to finish it has shown little regard for the good will of the public. One would think it had gone out of its way to insult the people. It finished up by refusing a meeting with the public representatives of the people.
In a scandalous letter for anyone to write the Board stated:
While in no way wishing to appear negative in this matter"—

and then it proceeded to say "No". It added:
It would be of considerable general benefit to Troon and we are, in any case, committed to it.
The Board has blackmailed the club—and us—in this matter. It was for that reason that I had a meeting with my hon. Friend and I sent a letter to Mr. Stuart stating that we were considering what further action we could take on the Floor of the House. It is better to get these things settled outside. Only in the last resort does one come to the Floor of the House, but if that is the way the Board wants to play, I am prepared to play it that way.
Troon Cruising Club is an old club. It has been cruising for the past 25 years and has had a year-to-year lease. I would advise the Docks Board to read closely the 1847 Act. It might discover that it is not allowed to lease certain facilities in its harbour and the dock for more than three years. I think that this provision is contained in Claus 23.
I am sorry that we did not have more notice of this. We are short of time, and it may be just as well if I do not expand my argument. I have some experience in reading Acts of Parliament, and if people raise the question of Acts of Parliament of this kind I am prepared to take them on.
I hope that the British Transport Docks Board does not come here fairly soon with a Private Act. It needs the good will of Members of Parliament and it should appreciate exactly what saying "No" means in the way that it has done in this case.
The Troon Cruising Club has an existing lease that does not end until May of next year. Suddenly it has learned from the local Press that this private project is to go ahead. It is shattering for people who are the tenants, and have been the tenants, suddenly to discover that they are being pushed aside and that someone new is coming in.
I have heard the name of Mr. Robin Knox-Johnston before. We all respect the gentleman for his qualities. But who are his associates? I looked up Mr. Robin Knox-Johnston in "Who's Who", and discovered that he has considerable interests. Since 1975, he has been


managing director of St. Katharine's Yacht Haven Limited. From 1970 to 1973, he was a director of Mercury Yacht Harbours Limited. Since 1973, he has been a director of Rank Marine International. Since 1974, he has been a director of Hoo Marina Limited. He has considerable business interests. But which of these companies—or is it another one—is involved in this matter? If it is Rank Marine International, which I believe is linked up with Rank Leisure Services, I hope that the local authority will take note of the experience which Ayr Burgh had with the Rank Organisation in respect of great developments which were to take place around the harbour area and on the foreshore at Ayr.
Is it not time that we came clean about this? I want to know who Robin Knox-Johnston represents, or the company that he represents. I think that we should know. After all, he will not be able to pluck £500,000 out of the air. I should like to know whether he has made any approach to the Scottish Office for money.

Mr. Lambie: The Scottish Tourist Board.

Mr. Ross: He probably does not know that the Scottish Tourist Board is independent. Has he approached the Scottish Office for money?
I should also like to know when he approached the British Transport Docks Board and when the Board informed its existing tenants—always assuming that it knew that it had tenants. It is my conviction that the Board did not know that it had tenants.
I am very disappointed to see the Scottish National Party Bench totally empty. I should have thought that this would be just the kind of case to interest SNP Members—a case of someone coming from the South and taking over something that has been used by ordinary local people for more than 20 years. They are not rich people. Many of them are engineers. They are people of fairly modest means. Their sport is cruising in small boats and making a family gathering of it. They have created their own facilities. I am surprised that SNP Members are not here today to help us.
Did the Board know that it had tenants? If it did, when did it inform its existing tenants? Did it give Troon Cruising Club an opportunity to make a competitive offer? We have heard nothing at all about that. Everything in the Board's letter says that it is a commercial development. I thought that the lifeblood of commerce was competition, but now the Board seems to have tied it all up with this one individual and his associates, whoever they are. The last thing that the Board ever thought of doing was to seek any form of tendering.
When did the Board commit itself to Mr. Knox-Johnston and his associates? What other dealing has the Board had with Mr. Knox-Johnston and his associates? I believe that there is another development at Irvine.

Mr. Lambie: That is an ICI development.

Mr. Ross: But are they tied in with it? Is Mr. Knox-Johnston the adviser there?

Mr. Lambie: To be fair to ICI, which controls Irvine, it must be said that the marina development at that harbour is one of the best examples of private development giving facilities to the ordinary man in the street. If my right hon. Friend and I had been dealing with ICI, we would have got a better deal than we have from this public enterprise, which we are always fighting to extend.

Mr. Ross: But the headquarters of ICI is in Ayrshire.
At one point, the Board suggested that it would give its tenants so many days' notice to quit. Apparently it did not even know that there were three months' rights under the existing lease.
Eventually, the Board sought to use the 1847 Act to get its tenants off the water. It is interesting to see what that Act says. I dare say that the Board had in mind Clause 54. Having given the powers, the clause says that if the harbour master or his assistants act without reasonable cause or in an unreasonable or unfair manner in exercising any of the powers vested in him, the person so offending—the harbour master—shall for every such offence be liable to a penalty not exceeding £5.
It is a wonderful Act, and it can be invoked. My hon. Friend and I ought to walk round Troon Harbour to see whether the Board is complying with it. Clause 23 provides that the Board cannot lease buildings for longer than three years. Clause 12, dealing with new works connected with the harbour, provides that in any part of the shore of the sea, creek, bay, arm of the sea or navigable river communicating therewith, it has to get written permission for all these developments from the Commissioner of Crown Lands. I hope that the Board has got it, if it is involved. Has all that been done, or has it all been taken for granted on the assumption that the Board could steamroller Troon Cruising Club and get its members out by hook or by crook?
At least the Board could have talked to the Members of Parliament concerned, acting for ordinary folk who have been carrying on their activities untroubled for 25 years and who are now faced with this new development, if it ever comes off.
It is deplorable that we should have actions of this kind from a public authority.

2.47 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) for raising this matter and giving it a very full airing, as I am sure are their constituents who are involved in this matter.
At the outset, perhaps I might refer briefly to a small part of the background to this affair. As my right hon. Friend and, my hon. Friend will know, the British Transport Docks Board, which owns and manages Troon Harbour, has been trying for several years to dispose of the inner harbour which it no longer requires for its normal commercial undertakings.
In 1974, negotiations with the then Town Council of Troon for the sale of the inner harbour were brought to an advanced stage, but I understand that they eventually fell through when, after local government reorganisation in 1975, the town council's successors, Kyle and Carrick District Council, decided not to proceed. It had been the town council's intention to convert the inner harbour

into a yachting marina of the kind that Mr. Knox-Johnston and his associates now propose.
Since then, the British Transport Docks Board has been continuing its efforts to dispose of the inner harbour, and here I refer to one of the matters raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock. To be fair to the board, it has been making continuing efforts to do something about this problem. It is not so much a question of not inviting tenders——

Mr. Lambie: It could have gone to the people of Troon.

Mr. William Ross: What is the good of trying to do something about it when, as the board says in its letter, it is already committed?

Mr. Horam: When I say that it was trying to do something about it, I meant that it was hoping to have a scheme to put to it which would use these facilities in an expanding way rather than carrying on using them in the existing way, which was not really fully satisfactory from the board's point of view.
That brings me on to my main point. first, the British Transport Docks Board is a public body with statutory responsibilities. It has a duty to ensure that its assets are used to the best advantage. The board has clearly been looking for a scheme, which has now come forward. which would enable it to do that.
The scheme now envisaged would provide employment and expansion in the area and would add to its tourist amenities. Clearly, one would welcome in principle the development of the coast and the waters around that area for sailing.

Mr. William Ross: It has been done already. We have some knowledge of what is going on and has been going on in the area, in Troon, in Irvine and all the way up that coast.

Mr. Horam: The point is that the scheme proposed by Mr. Robin Knox-Johnston and his associates is different in kind in the sense that it is more expansive than the existing facilities. I acknowledge my ignorance of the area, as I have no Scottish responsibilities in the way that my hon. Friend the Minister


of State for Scotland has, but I must make that point.

Mr. Lambie: My hon. Friend must realise that people on the Clyde are becoming a wee bit perturbed about what is happening.

Mr. William Ross: Money-makers.

Mr. Lambie: All the best harbours are being taken over by private developers or private marinas, which are charging up to £300 a year for a boat. Troon is one of the few harbours left where ordinary working men and women can sail at reasonable cost. Surely, it is my hon. Friend's responsibility as a Socialist Minister to see that the right type of expansion goes on, not the type of private expansion which he is trying to sell to us now. That is for Tory Ministers, not for him.

Mr. Horam: That is something that we shall certainly consider. None the less, we must also consider the sensible use of the British Transport Docks Board's facilities in the area, and whether the proposals being put forward will help generally in the expansion of the area. Perhaps there are conflicting considerations to be taken into account.
I come now to the complaints that my right hon. and hon. Friends have made about the discussions that have taken place between the present lessees, the Troon Cruising Club, and the British Transport Docks Board. I was extremely concerned—and so was my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who is here today—about the nature of the discussions which my right hon. and hon. Friends have disclosed. I should be very perturbed to hear that the British Transport Docks Board was not prepared to receive a delegation from Members of Parliament from that area, and so would the Minister of State, particularly as the delegation would obviously also include my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock, who was Secretary of State for Scotland until a short time ago.
I cannot now go into all the details of such discussions. I do not think that an Adjournment debate is the right forum to go into detail about the discussions which my right hon. and hon. Friends would like to have seen. The real forum should be a meeting between the interested parties. I am, however, glad to

give an assurance that I and the Minister of State are very concerned about this and we shall look into it.
I think that that is the right way to deal with the contacts, which appear to have been very unsatisfactory, between the Troon Cruising Club and the British Transport Docks Board. Both the particular and the more general points that have been raised in the debate can best be dealt with in discussions between the parties.
Obviously, my right hon. Friend will be particularly concerned that, while it is perfectly possible that the existing users, Troon Cruising Club, can carry on using the facilities there, if and when they are developed by Mr. Knox-Johnston and his associates——

Mr. William Ross: Who are "his associates"?

Mr. Horam: I do not know the full business background of Mr. Knox-Johnston. He described himself in the proposals as "Mr. Knox-Johnston and Associates". I have not had the opportunity to find out exactly who Mr. Knox-Johnston and his associates are. We have the background in the original proposal put forward, in which he describes his history and his business interests. For example he set up the Mercury Yacht Club Limited, he is managing director of Mercury Yacht Harbours, he is managing director of Knox-Johnston Marine Limited, he is a director of Rank Marine International, a director of Port Hamble Limited and of various other companies concerned with sailing. That is what we know about Mr. Knox-Johnston.

Mr. William Ross: He is a money-maker.

Mr. Horam: Without probing further, I am unable to say more than that at present. Perhaps this is a matter which could be gone into when a meeting is held.
As for financial backing, I understand that Mr. Knox-Johnston has applied for a grant from the Scottish Tourist Board, an independent body which will presumably make up its own mind on the merits of the case. I understand that the grant is an important part of his proposals.

Mr. William Ross: I did not think that the Scottish Tourist Board gave grants to individuals.

Mr. Horam: The board gives grants to companies.

Mr. William Ross: We want to know about any company.

Mr. Horam: I understand that Robin Knox-Johnston and Associates is a company, and the company would be the recipient of the grant. The board does not give grants to individuals.

Mr. Lambie: This is an important point. If Troon Cruising Club were given a guarantee of a long-term lease, for example, over 21 years, the club would qualify for a similar grant from the Scottish Tourist Board. That is what we should like to see. If the club had a long lease of 21 years, it could have a grant and the facilities would be preserved for local people.

Mr. Horam: That is a matter for the Scottish Tourist Board, and my hon. Friend will not expect me to comment on that. It is, first, a matter for the Scottish Tourist Board, and ultimately, I suppose, for the Secretary of State for Scotland in so far as he has any locus in the matter.
On the question of cost, my hon. Friend mentioned a fee of £300 which has apparently been raised by Mr. Knox-Johnston in discussions. The existing equivalent fee is about £10, so there would certainly be a large jump, but I understand that the proposals put forward by Mr. Knox-Johnston and his associates would allow cheaper facilities to be provided at below £300.

Mr. William Ross: What about £40 as against the existing £170?

Mr. Horam: I do not know what price has been suggested. But I do not think that it is necessarily a question of going from £10 to £300. As I said earlier, the question of facilities for the cruising club would be a matter for negotiations between the new lessees and the cruising club, if or when the scheme were put forward. Apart from that, at a later stage, when an application is put forward, as must be done by a developer in the ordinary way, for planning permission and the other clearances necessary

for the project to go ahead, that would be a matter in the first instance for the district council, which, I understand, looks reasonably favourably on the scheme. I do not know whether it is accurate, but that is the information which I have. Here again, the question would ultimately be for my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who is present and interested to hear what is said. He would take a view on it if and when it came up. That is not a matter for me.
Since we have almost used our allotted half-hour, I conclude on this note: I think that in principle this scheme, if it can be got right, seems likely to contribute to the area in creating employment in the way I have described. Nevertheless, both my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I are extremely concerned at what has been said by my right hon. and hon. Friends about the way discussions took place or, rather, the lack of discussion. I assure hon. Members that I and the Minister of State, Scottish Office, will look into the lack of discussion and courtesy extended by the British Transport Docks Board. I hope that hon. Members feel that the problem—which is obviously worse than I had anticipated before the debate—has been satisfactorily aired.

CENTRAL ORDNANCE DEPOT, CHILWELL

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Jim Lester: The subject I wish to raise, unlike that of the previous debate, concerns a decision that is yet to be made. It is one that we are currently arguing about rather than one that has already happened. I hope, as an hon. Member on the Back Benches, that with the support of others I can influence a future decision. I welcome the chance to put this matter before the House.
I have had considerable correspondence with the Minister about the proposal to close the Central Ordnance Depot, Chilwell, which is in my constituency. I see this not as a narrow constituency argument but in a much broader context, that of trying to maintain military efficiency. I shall argue only on the basis that there is a danger that the Government may not achieve the desired savings.
I speak with the support of the trade unions on the site, which have maintained a vigorous and reasoned opposition to the closure through the established Whitley channels. I also have the support of six local hon. Members, three from each party. One cannot be fairer than that. I speak with the support of Broxtowe District Council, which has made considerable surveys of the effect that the closure will have on the area. The council may seek to speak to the Minister about this at some time in the new year. I am also talking with the support of the Opposition Front Bench defence team, which has raised this matter in previous debates.
I do not challenge the defence cuts that are the declared policy of the Government. Whatever my opinion on that may be, that subject is not the purpose of today's debate. The need to streamline support services in line with reduced military commitments is accepted. My argument is about whether this proposal is the best way in which to achieve streamlining in terms of people, jobs and cost and, in the final analysis, in terms of military efficiency.
The fair value proposals, which have now been refined in more detail, made two initial assumptions that I challenge. It is assumed that COD concerns of every type and speciality can be as efficiently processed on two locations as on three. This assumption ignores the manpower recruiting problems at Bicester, the historical cost and types of issue and, more fundamentally, the use to be made of the space created at Chilwell.
The second assumption is that modern, high-density storage techniques have as important a rôle to play in the running and efficiency of military establishments as in civilian ones issuing similar types of stores. This is a false assumption because it makes a wrong comparison between civilian needs for issuing stores to such establishments as motor car factories and the very different basis upon which COD stores are maintained—the basis that, whatever happens, we must have sufficient spares to maintain our fighting forces over a period of time.
Having made those assumptions one then gets into the numbers game—calculating the cubic storage capacity of the

three CODs and dividing them one into the other so that only one answer can be produced, and that is the closure of COD Chigwell. The figures fail to sustain a convincing case. They fail to convince me or others that the Army will have an organisation for storeholding and distribution that will be economically, socially and, most important of all, militarily effective.
In order to close the most cost-effective depot of all, COD Chilwell, in order to achieve savings of £2 million a year, the Government will be faced with considerable capital outlay on new equipment and services for the two remaining depots. The Department may have to pay for new buildings. This is at a time when there is increasing pressure on the Ministry of Defence to save money and when a new round of defence cuts has just been announced. This is a time when we should think carefully before embarking on expenditure of £8 million or £9 million in order to achieve paper savings.
The closure will involve an enormous amount of reorganisation, cost and planning for the preparation of the two receiving depots. For the first time, 50,000 to 70,000 tons of stores will be moved. Those figures give an indication of how difficult it is for us to accept the statistics given to us by the Government. The parameters are so wide. Twenty thousand tons is a very large gap. There will be 323,000 separate items to be processed.
At the same time, however, COD Chilwell will be asked to maintain an effective supply organisation for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and overseas Governments. I want to stress the position of overseas Governments. At a time when the Secretary of State is quite rightly trying to develop our defence industries, and when good will is particularly important, the whole range of supplies for foreign Governments will have to be supplied from COD Chilwell during the reorganisation. The Secretary of State is asking COD Chilwell to carry out the difficult operation of maintaining a service and at the same time moving such an enormous tonnage.
The reorganisation will involve extra jobs at Chilwell because the depot will be carrying out two separate functions. The depot is now recruiting staff, and recruiting will continue up to the moment


of closure. One wonders to what extent redundancy costs have been included in the estimated cost of the proposals.
After the move, an excellently designed and purpose-built building will be left behind for an undisclosed use. It has been maintained at high cost and is in perfect working order. Yet there will be no particular use for it. It may be that there will be an alternative use, but in any case the building will require maintenance and rates will be charged on it. A military installation, requiring servicing, and a garrison will also be left at Chilwell. Unless there are plans for total closure and clearance of the site—and that brings in the whole question of misuse of resources—this is an important factor that should be considered.
There will also be a social problem. My constituency will lose between 14,000 and 15,000 jobs which will be difficult to replace. I do not want to be party political and contentious, but Government action on VAT, the closure of the Vic Hallan factory, the closure of a post office, the problems of Plessey Telecommunications and many local bankruptcies and receiverships will all lead to unemployment in one tiny constituency.
Many employees have had the prospect of closure of COD Chilwell hanging over their heads for some time. They know that the chances of other employment are remote. Yet these people are being asked to co-operate and to take on additional responsibilities in the running of the service during the transfer of the enormous tonnage of stores. The case is not convincing, and we are not convinced.
Another reason of which the Minister is aware is doubt over the validity of the figures. It is strange that, when we questioned the figures and produced a different number of jobs in Chilwell, the revised view of the number of jobs required at Donnington and Bicester went down by a similar number, thereby leaving the savings the same. When more stores were found at Chilwell than anyone imagined existed, a new review took place and 323 cubic feet of storage space was found to accept those stores at the other two receiving depots. When we checked on this, we were told that they were using the Old Dalby sub-depot of Donnington, which is actually nearer

Chilwell than Shropshire. This is the sort of thing that makes everyone worry and increases our suspicions.
The present position is untenable. Hon. Members and the work force have not been convinced, and we have suggested that there is a reasonably credible alternative. Unless it is costed and presented, the chances of the Minister achieving the results he expects are remote.
There is a good case for three slimmed-down depots. This solution would require no additional capital expenditure on a large scale and would mean that new handling equipment could be deployed on a cost-effective basis. I do not accept the argument about tall buildings, because there are such buildings at Chilwell which could be redeployed and the more modern methods of handling could be brought in stage by stage.
The alternative solution would also retain the existing skills and high efficiency of the current employees, and no one who knows Chilwell would wish to penalise the people who have worked there, many for their whole lives. The same is probably true of Donnington, although less true of Bicester, which I know because I was once stationed there. Even more important is the good will of the employees at Chilwell. This is a key factor. British Leyland is making a great effort to get participation and good will among its employees. At Chilwell we are doing the opposite.
The alternative solution would produce, through negotiations with the trade unions, immediate and greater manpower savings than the whole fair value exercise is designed to achieve. On a properly agreed basis, spread over the three depots, there could be a greater reduction of manpower through retirements, without any redundancies, with a much wider social spread and far less damage and personal hardship to any particular locality.
It would also produce space alternatives on a more sensible basis. We should be producing space in three locations instead of one. It would be chosen on criteria of suitability, and if, for example, perimeters of Donnington, Bicester or even Chilwell were suitable for disposal they could be released, and this would be a permanent release because one could say that the Army did not require them.
This would bring much greater savings than a series of empty sheds in the middle of the Chilwell establishment.
The solution would also avoid one thing which the Minister must have had in mind and which has never been done before—that is, the trauma of trying to retain military efficiency and to spend three or four years running an impossible combination of recruitment, retirement and redundancies, with key staff leaving whenever they get the opportunity and the industrial resentment which is inevitably caused by an additional work load. The effect on a worker of having to work himself out of a job should not be underestimated.
Another reason for the alternative solution is that it would lower the cost to the national Exchequer. We should remember the cost of high unemployment and bear in mind that we are talking about 1,400 jobs in one locality. When firms approach the Government and ask for help to keep a factory open, they often calculate the cost of unemployment pay if the factory had to close.
In the end, this is a matter of judgment. The Minister has been most helpful in keeping me informed, and I understand that the decision has not yet been made. I can inform the hon. Gentleman that the fight has only just begun.
Reasonable doubt exists about the motives of the fair value proposals, their cost-effectiveness and their timing. We shall be watching in the coming months to see how this develops. There is a reasonable alternative which has not been costed or presented. The present plan will be difficult to implement and is not convincing.
We think at this time of year of Charles Dickens and Christmases past, present and to come. The best Christmas present that the Minister could give to my constituents would be to tell them that he is not going to close the Chilwell depot, but perhaps that is asking a little too much.
I hope that, having heard what I have said, the Minister will recognise that the case which I have presented is reasonably logical and that he will offer an independent assessment of the proposal for the three slimmed-down depots. I wish to see a happy work force at

Chilwell and a properly-run military establishment so that our Services and overseas Governments can look with pride at the job done by central ordnance depots in this country.

3.17 p.m.

Mr. Gerry Fowler: I wish to make only one brief point. I have every sympathy with the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), but my constituency includes Donnington, which is situated in Telford New Town, where the Government have spent, are spending and will spend millions of pounds a year to generate employment.
It is an area of historically high unemployment, especially female unemployment, by the standards of the West Midlands and the southern half of the country. The Donnington depot alone helps to relieve this situation, and I should view with great disfavour, if there were any other way of doing it, the rundown of employment at Donnington.

3.18 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Robert C. Brown): I cannot start by saying, as Ministers usually do, that I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising this debate. I should have preferred to be somewhere else today, and it would be hypocritical of me to say otherwise.
The hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) has made a number of points, to which I must reply at some length if the proposal for the closure of the Central Ordnance Depot at Chilwell is not to be misunderstood. The House will, I am sure, agree that the closure of a large, central installation ought not to be contemplated unless there are overriding reasons for it, especially when there is a possibility of redundancies amongst the civilian employees there. Before giving those reasons, I believe it will help if I briefly outline the background to this proposal.
It will be recalled that the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1975 indicated that one of the consequences of the defence review would be a large reduction in the number of civilian staffs directly employed in the support of the three Services at home and abroad, as well as those engaged in defence work in industry. The statement also explained that the primary aim of the defence


review was to maintain unimpaired, to the maximum extent compatible with the new levels of available resources, both the quality and quantity of the United Kingdom's operational contribution to NATO. Consequently, support activities would be required to bear a proportionately larger share of the total reductions than "teeth arm" units.
During 1975 and 1976 the Army Department conducted a wide-ranging series of studies to identify the measures needed to achieve economies in its support functions and infrastructure. In these studies the logistic services were reviewed against an underlying assumption that, because there would be no significant reduction in the number of Army teeth units or major equipments requiring logistic support, there would be no significant decrease in the size of the Army's stores inventory, the volume of storage required or the level of ordnance supply activity. In short, although we could expect some reductions reflecting the 8 per cent. reduction in the Army's military manpower over the next few years, the size of the support task would remain substantially the same.
It quickly became evident that the economies in both operations and staffing in the logistic area could not be obtained by an across-the-board reduction, and the studies confirmed that more radical measures were likely to be necessary. These would have to be based on a restructuring as the main source of defence review savings, and restructuring could yield the required savings only through the closure, where this was possible, of whole establishments to provide not just the necessary reductions in both military and civilian staffs but also reductions in administrative and other overhead costs. It is against this background that the proposal to close the Central Ordnance Depot at Chilwell must be considered.
In February 1976 the results of the Army's first studies of logistic restructuring, an exercise called "Fair Value", were published in a consultative memorandum to which I drew the attention of the House in reply to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Williams) on 10th February. These proposals included a rationalisation of the existing three central ordnance depots by closing the depot at Chilwell and transferring its stores to the two central

ordnance depots at Bicester and Donning-ton.
Following publication of these proposals, consultations with staff and trade union representatives led to an agreement to make the proposed closure of Chilwell the subject of a special review, and a further consultative memorandum validating and amplifying the details of the proposal was published. More detailed studies during 1976 confirmed that considerable annual savings could be achieved by the early 1980s by the closure of Chilwell and at the same time the modernising of the Bicester and Donnington depots.
I believe that this proposal should be viewed as a stage in an evolutionary process aimed at a continuing improvement in the Army's levels of efficiency and economy of operation. Since 1964, cuts in defence expenditure and successive reductions in the size of the Army and of the stocks required for its support have resulted in the progressive closure of two central ordnance depots and a number of sub-depots in the United Kingdom.
As part of management's continuous search for economies, the RAOC carried out in 1973 an examination of its longterm storage assets and requirements. A feasibility study indicated that the use of modern storage equipment could result in the number of CODs being reduced from three to two with substantial savings in administrative overheads. The closure of a COD during the 1980s was therefore inevitable, and the defence review merely advanced the date by half a decade.
The hon. Member for Beeston suggested alternative ways of obtaining the savings we need, and I will comment on his suggestions. First, we have studied the possibility of operating all three CODs on a reduced scale. However, the efficiency of any storeholding organisation is increased by a concentration of its stocks in as few locations as possible, and its cost-effectiveness is improved by the reduction of managerial and administrative overheads which would flow from such a concentration. By operating the three CODs even on a reduced scale, we would lose the overhead savings to be gained from closing Chilwell and, because we would still have to find the financial savings required by the defence review, equivalent savings elsewhere could mean the loss of an additional 450 jobs in the Army's logistic services.
Secondly, we have considered whether it would be more rational to close either Bicester or Donnington instead of Chilwell, where alternative employment is hard to to find, but, as I shall explain more fully in a few moments in stating the case for closing Chilwell, we can accommodate the future storage requirements of the Army, without a new building programme, only by a combination of the Donnington and Bicester depots.
Thirdly, we have considered closing installations on the Continent instead of Chilwell, and we are already making proportionately larger reductions in our civilian work force overseas than in the United Kingdom. As far as is practicable and within the limits of operational requirements, we are making savings on the Continent and will continue to seek more.
I turn now to the case for closing COD Chilwell. The three existing depots taken together have more capacity than is needed by the Army, and in these times of financial stringency it would be indefensible to hold unnecessary reserves of resources. On the best estimates that can be arrived at by the Army's professional experts, it is only the combination of the Bicester and Donnington depots which would provide sufficient storage depot space now with a margin for expansion to meet future requirements. Any alternative configuration would result in unacceptable penalties in terms of extra costs for new buildings and a delay in meeting the defence review deadline of 1st April 1980. Furthermore, if the need should arise in the very long term for an expansion of the central installations, the Chilwell depot would offer relatively little room for this whereas COD Bicester in particular already has ample room for expansion.
The cost savings would be substantial. There would be an annual saving of £2 million, which is a conservative estimate. The new consultative memorandum published in early September gave a figure of nearly £8 million as the cost of the reorganisation. This figure was cautiously pitched on the high side, and already detailed contingency planning is producing evidence that the capital cost is likely to be lower. In short, the initial

capital costs of reorganisation are likely to be recovered within four years or sooner, and thereafter there will be a welcome annual saving of a minimum of £2 million to the defence budget. These are savings which it would be extremely difficult to forgo.
I have said that these cost estimates are of a conservative nature. There are other potential savings, difficult to quantify, which have not been claimed as part of the basis for a decision to close the COD but which nevertheless are likely to accrue. For example, there is a sum of £1·3 million which is currently spent on rates, heating and maintenance, some part of which will undoubtedly be saved. In addition, the COD site at Chilwell occupies valuable urban land which could be disposed of if other Government use cannot be found, and it is estimated, again cautiously, that the benefit to the defence budget might be as high as £2 million for the land, or round about £10 million if the existing sheds are taken over for commercial use.
The reductions in staffs which this reorganisation will produce are estimated to be as follows. Military personnel will be reduced by 18 officers and 94 soldiers of the RAOC. The number of civilian posts to be saved will be at least 375, and continuing studies suggest that the number of posts to be saved could well be higher.
I am very conscious of the redundancy problem which is inseparable from this kind of proposal. However, a critical look at the possible size of the redundancy problem, within the figures I have just quoted, makes it clear that, at its maximum, the number of civilian employees which could become redundant would be 1,240 and that this number will probably be substantially smaller for a number of reasons: the rundown of Chilwell taking place over at least four years, during which time some 175 civilians will have reached the retirement age of 65; the relatively high natural wastage within the COD and other units in the Chilwell garrison—for example, the depot employs large numbers of married women and has more than a 10 per cent. annual turnover of staff; and efforts which will be made to find alternative work by the Ministry


of Defence, the Department of Employment and other Government Departments. These will all play a part.
I should like to assure the House that I am very mindful of the adverse effects not only of the closure of COD Chilwell but of the reductions and closures of other Army establishments which are planned to take place during the next few years. We shall be making every effort, in consultation with local staff interests, to take advantage of natural staff wastage, to transfer staff to suitable alternative Government work and to consult closely with the Department of Employment. In this connection, closures and reductions will be spread over as long a period as is practicable and consistent with the targets we are facing.
I do not in any way underestimate the effect which these economies will have on some of our employees, but it is something we have to face if the Department is to make its contribution to the reductions in public expenditure which are required in the national interest, not only as part of the defence review but as part of the new decisions announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week, and if at the same time we are to maintain the Army's operational efficiency and contribution to NATO.
I fully appreciate the concern which the hon. Member for Beeston has expressed over the effect on his constituents of the closure of COD Chilwell. We have always recognised the need for full and frank consultation with the staff interests concerned over the Army logistic restructuring proposals, and since they were announced in February this year there have been no fewer than six consultative meetings at departmental level, as well as numerous local meetings, to discuss these proposals. A meeting at departmental level has been arranged for 7th January, which will be devoted solely to discussing the proposed closure of COD Chilwell, and local staff representatives from Chilwell will be able to make their views known at that meeting. I can assure the hon. Member for Beeston that no final decision on closure will be taken until the views and representations from all sources have been carefully considered.
I take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler).

CHEMISTS' SHOPS (BRISTOL)

3.30 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I wish to raise the question of the decline of chemists' shops in Bristol. I realise that this matter is of wider national concern even if I refer to it mainly in a Bristol context. National figures have been supplied to me by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain which show that the number of separate pharmacies in this country has declined from 15,300 in 1955 to a little over 11,000 this year.
I have no exact figures for closures for the whole of Bristol, but the Bristol Community Teaching Health Council states that in its area, which would embrace a considerable part of the city, 16 pharmacies have closed in the last five years. I have perhaps rather more precise figures for my constituency, where investigation shows that in the area, which has an electorate of about 52,000, nearly half of 13 pharmacies have disappeared in the last 10 years.
I wish to consider the reason for this national and local trend. First, competition from large multiple stores and multiple chemists in cosmetics, toilet articles, fancy goods, and so on, has left the independent chemist with a profit that is insufficient to subsidise the making up of prescriptions.
Then, secondly, inflation hits every business, particularly the small business. It is, however, extremely costly for the pharmacist. It affects him in replacing his stock of drugs. Chemists are paid by the Government—who are never in a hurry to pay anybody if they can avoid it—three months in arrears. This means that the small men are driven to obtaining expensive bank loans in order to maintain their businesses. Sometimes they do not succeed in doing so.
There is a third point here which has not received so much publicity. I am obliged to a friend of mine in Bristol who told me of it. It concerns the methods of the drug firms which supply the small chemists. I am referring to the


major wholesalers, such as Gibbs, a subsidiary of Glaxo, and Evans Gadd, a subsidiary of Sanger. The wholesalers once had the policy of granting chemists three months' credit, particularly if companies were anxious to obtain the business. In this way they secured the allegiance of those chemists by getting them to establish or maintain themselves in business with expensive stock. I regret to say that the practice of some of these firms afterwards is to squeeze the chemist by reducing the period of credit to two months or even less.
I have no doubt that it may be regarded as good accountancy practice in large firms that they should not have too much money outstanding. But it is often a body blow to small people, resulting, once again, in their withdrawal from the pharmacy business and even their financial failure. My information is that some of these big firms are reticent even to enter into correspondence with pharmacists on this point, but they still demand their payments.
I turn now to the relationship between the National Health Service and the local chemist. It is not unfair to say that successive Governments have never regarded pharmacists as professional people, despite their long training and the examination standard demanded. I need hardly say that the need for safety in the dispensing of drugs is vital. These men and women have to be highly trained and well-educated in their job. I am told that even with the factory medical product—the ready-made medicine, which is far more prevalent today than in the past—it is important that the pharmacist should be able to check the general practitioner's prescription. This is no reflection on general practitioners, but, apart from their reputed bad writing, mistakes have been known to be made. It is important that the dispensing chemist should be able to check the dose and related aspects of administering it.
I am afraid that the attitude of Governments has often been that the pharmacist is just another shopkeeper, hiring out his services to the community as at best a kind of medical auxiliary. There was an article dealing with this point some time ago in The Sunday Times. I shall quote one paragraph, which refers to the pharmacist:

As his professional organisation, the Pharmaceutical Society represents conflicting sectional interests of independent pharmacies, public companies, co-ops, industrial and hospital pharmacists, etc., it is disunited, feeble and fair game for division and rule by Government, big business, and any other powerful string pullers.
These are strong words, but perhaps they are not unjustified.
The system of remuneration for pharmacists is very complicated. I do not profess for one moment to understand it fully. The present system is the result of an agreement made in 1964, I think, between the rulers of the National Health Service and the representatives of the profession. No doubt the agreement was freely entered into, but it was some time ago. It seems to be based on a system that fees are calculated from a notional salary which, at present, I think, is fixed at £5,000 per annum. No doubt his Department will have supplied my hon. Friend with the exact figure.
When we compare that figure with the average national wage, which must now be between £3,000 and £4,000 a year, there does not seem to be a great differential. There are additional payments for the maintenance of the shop, and so on, of course. Nevertheless, we can hardly say that the pharmacist is over-rewarded.
Although I am obviously sympathetic to this important group in the community who give devoted service, high standards of skill and knowledge and work long hours, my principal concern is with the interests and the convenience of the public generally and my constituents in particular. A reduction in the number of chemists' shops to about half the number of a decade ago in my constituency of Bristol, North-East will mean that pensioners, the disabled, and mothers with children will have to walk long distances to get prescriptions made up unless they possess cars.
The problem in my constituency—this aspect is rather special to this part of the country—has been aggravated by the construction of motorways which have sliced through what were formerly integrated communities. Motorways can be crossed only by underpasses—for elderly people they often turn out to be the mugger's delight—or bridges overhead, again with many dangers of accidents to the elderly.
Before turning now to the remedies for this serious state of affairs, I should like to attempt to clear the subject of group medical practices. I am in favour of the development of group practices which provide pharmaceutical services at health centres or by special arrangement with a nearby chemist. But the immediate result of that policy, good and rational as it is, is to concentrate dispensing in or around a health centre, leaving other areas in the same city further denuded of facilities. Therefore, one could say that it was common sense, to use a much abused term, that there should be a properly planned service by pharmacists not only for health centres and group practices but on an evenly spread independent basis as well. I suggest that this remedy needs to be investigated very closely.
I understand that the Department, which has been rather slow-moving on this matter in the past, as I shall show, in co-operation with the working party set up by the Pharmaceutical Society, is now looking at the possibility of carrying out this idea. I am glad to hear that, because I put a Question to my hon. Friend's predecessor—now the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office—asking
if he will take steps to increase the number of chemists' shops and other centres for the dispensing of medical prescription in Bristol.
The reply was:
I am not aware of exceptional circumstances in Bristol which might justify the intervention of my right hon. Friend, but I should be glad to receive details of any special dfficulties which patients have in getting prescriptions dispensed."—[Official Report, 27th April 1976: Vol. 910, c. 81–2.]
I assure my hon. Friend that there are exceptional circumstances in Bristol, as elsewhere. This problem must be taken seriously by the Department.
I have had correspondence on the issue with interested local community health councils, local representatives of pharmacists and Labour ward councillors and members.
All stress the need for action. As a result of publicity which the famous Bristol Evening Post has given to this Adjournment debate, only this morning I received a letter from the vicar of a parish in my St. Paul ward expressing the concern of his church council on be-

half of the elderly regarding yet another threatened closure in North-East Bristol.
But I think that the most pungent comment that I have received so far has come from a lady, who writes:
There is another elderly person's dwelling in my area almost completed. Is it really fair to site buildings like this in a place where the local shops sell only aspirins and castor oil?
That is a very penetrating question, and I shall be glad to hear my hon. Friend's answer.

3.45 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Roland Moyle): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer). By initiating this Adjournment debate he has given me a chance to talk about pharmaceutical provision in relation to the National Health Service generally. As I shall seek to show, although the debate is couched in terms of Bristol and we shall be touching on the Bristol situation, it is a reflection of a national problem which needs discussing, and I hope that it will produce some action.
Those in the House who take an active interest in these services will be aware by now that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have recently spoken to members of the pharmaceutical profession on various issues concerning pharmacists, including the question of the decline in the number of pharmacies, which I readily admit. Incidentally, in the Department these days we tend to use the term "pharmacist" rather than "chemist". That is the modern fashion.
In view of some of my hon. Friend's remarks, I should place on record the fact that I have the highest possible regard for the professional services that pharmacists contribute to the running of the NHS; indeed, I should like to see them enhanced. I am sure that they are generally in a position to do that.
In Bristol, the local community health council, as well as the local ward branches of the Labour Party, has done much to draw attention to the number of local pharmacy closures in the last few years. Indeed, we have a letter from the community health council setting out its views on the situation, a copy of which I am sure my hon. Friend has also received. I welcome the way in which


these councils alert their local area health authorities and family practitioner committees to the problems that are occurring in this field, because it is these bodies that are responsible for providing or administering the services locally and they express public concern to the health authorities and family practitioner committees about the adequacy of particular local services.
I ought to mention the statutory responsibilities of my right hon. Friend in this matter. He is responsible for the provision of a NHS dispensing service—that is, the supply of medicines on a NHS doctor's or dentist's prescription by a pharmacist who has contracted with the NHS to do that. Of course, I recognise that some medicines that do not require a prescription can be obtained only at a pharmacy, that pharmacists stock a wide range of other products, and that the accessibility of the pharmacist is very important to the consumer for other purposes besides NHS dispensing. In other words, it is generally a combined commercial operation and a dispensing service.
I stress that my right hon. Friend and I would not be empowered to spend money except, obviously, in pursuit of NHS dispensing arrangements.
My hon. Friend gave some figures of closures nationally and in Bristol during the last few years. I have figures for periods of time different from those that he gave, but, if anything, I think that my figures are slightly more gloomy than those that he gave. My figures show that in the former area of the county borough of Bristol, since 1973 there have been 29 closures, and these have been balanced by the opening of only eight new pharmacies. This is part of a wider picture, which shows an overall decline in the number of pharmacies in England from 9,700 to just below 9,000.
The main reason seems to be a change in shopping habits and preferences, following closely what has been happening to many other types of small neighbourhood shops. Lack of custom has led to the closure of old-fashioned corner shops, whose former users are making more of their purchases in main shopping centres. This may be a growing trend, or perhaps increasing travel costs will alter or reverse it.
My hon. Friend mentioned the delay in Government payments to pharmacists. These are handled by the Prescription Pricing Authority, and the Government have recently mounted an exercise to improve its speed of reaction. I hope that there will be extensive consultation, to be followed by action in the not-too-distant future.
Pharmacies have been closing at a time when the number of prescriptions issued under the NHS has been rising steadily. So closures have combined with the opening of new pharmacies, but not to the same extent. This suggests a redistribution of pharmacy work and not simply a loss of existing facilities. But most of these closures have taken place in the inner city and urban areas rather than in rural areas. That is the source of my hon. Friend's worry, because his constituency covers just such an area.
At the moment, the development of health centres is not a serious cause of concern, although I agree that they concentrate doctors' practices by bringing them together with other primary health and sometimes social services, and we recognise that they may create problems for pharmacists. However, only 17 per cent. of the nation's doctors practise from health centres, and of the 634 centres operating only 13 contain pharmacies. I welcome the development of health centres, and there may be more of them with pharmacies. That will create some local problems.

Mr. Palmer: Before leaving that point, will my hon. Friend deal with the other point that I raised—the practice of the large wholesale drug firms and chemists of restricting credit or shortening the credit period?

Mr. Moyle: With the action of the Tricker Committee and what I hope will be the speedier response of the Prescription Pricing Authority to pharmacists' bills, that matter should be eased considerably. I hope to show that some other matters may contribute to solving the problem.
We always try to consider the problems of pharmacy closures from the point of view of people with no private transport. But this is an uneven business. The answer to the problem of a pensioner on a bus route is very different from the answer to that of a young woman with


children and a long walk to a bus stop. But we hope to solve the problem.
Most prescriptions are issued from doctors' surgeries. So far as I can judge from considering my hon. Friend's constituency, most doctors' surgeries are within half a mile or three-quarters of a mile of a pharmacy—although one or two may be a little further away. There we get to the point of inconvenience. When complaints are received which suggest that there is a local problem, we ask the family practitioner committee for details. These usually reveal a loss of convenience or individual personal difficulties rather than a serious dispensing problem for the whole community.
As a result of my hon. Friend's questions to my predecessor, now the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office—my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen)—we have done our best to investigate the immediate problems in the Bristol area. My predecessor invited details of any difficulties that were being experienced in Bristol. There followed an article in the Bristol Evening Post publicising this invitation, but I regret that only three letters were sent to my Department as a result. The electors of Bristol probably had confidence in the ability of my hon. Friend to represent them without the need for further intervention on their own behalf. That did not deter us from following up the matter.
It is probably the trend rather than the actual situation in Bristol that is worrying—the fact that the number of pharmacies per head of the population is decreasing. If the situation remained as it is now there would still be 83 pharmacies in the city, and the ratio of pharmacies to population in the whole Bristol area would remain at about 1 to 5,000 people, which is still slightly better than the national average.
I realise that even here there are still problems of distribution. I recognise that some people cannot easily reach a pharmacy without using public transport. Concessionary fares—half fares—are available for the elderly and disabled in Bristol and they should make the cost of travelling for prescriptions somewhat less expensive.
I said that the Government were worried about the problem in Bristol and

in the whole country. We are keeping a close watch on it and taking action. To help solve the problems of elderly and handicapped people who find difficulty in getting about, relatives or neighbours should be mobilised. To that end, I should like to give further publicity to the "Good Neighbour" campaign that has been launched recently by my right hon. Friend. That is concerned not only with the collection of medicines. People in any community are urged to go out of their way to help those who are less fortunate. The collection of medicines for senior citizens, the handicapped and the less well supported is one way in which a good neighbour policy can be simply and effectively deployed by the local community.
We are watching closely the number of pharmacies, and their distribution. We are alert to identify any exceptional situation where arrangements for dispensing might be justified. We have to balance against that the fact that we cannot afford to spend money on facilities which involve highly-trained manpower if they are likely to be under-used. In any case, there would have to be extensive consultations with the local representatives of the professions before we could take action. There are already arrangements, under the system for remunerating pharmacists for National Health Service dispensing, to help isolated pharmacies, normally in rural areas, which dispense small numbers of prescriptions.
We have started to discuss with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee the problems of small pharmacies in both urban and rural areas, to see what we can do to help them and to ensure that an essential dispensing service is maintained. The negotiating committee has put to my Department proposals for additional help for pharmacies of this type, and we are sympathetic to the idea, although I stress that in the present financial circumstances the solution must take the form of a reallocation of a small sum of the total sum of money due to pharmacists, rather than new money being put in by my Department. This is the main hope for retaining the existing number of pharmacies.
I hope that as a result of what I have said my hon. Friend will realise that we are doing our best to support the pharmaceutical service to the National Health


Service, that we recognise that there is a problem of the nature to which he has drawn attention, and that we shall continue to watch it closely at local level and endeavour to introduce national policies which will help to alleviate the situation.

TRENT REGIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY

4.0 p.m.

Mr. William Whitlock: When the National Health Service came into being in 1948, Britain led Europe in post-war recovery. We topped every worthwhile table and became at the same time the Welfare State, the envy of the world. Then, from 1951 we had 13 years of Conservative government, during most of which time Britain spent a lower percentage of its national income on health welfare and social security provision than did its neighbours. That fact, together with the frustrating, time-consuming bureaucracy brought into being by the reorganisation of the National Health Service enacted by the last Conservative Government, produced an ailing, demoralised Health Service which was in crisis at the time the minority Labour Government came to power in 1974 to face the worst post-war, world-wide slump, with Britain being left disastrously unprepared for it by the outgoing Conservative Government.
For all that, larger sums of money have been spent on the Health Service in the past three years than ever before in its history, thanks largely to the advocacy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), who fought so hard for it as Secretary of State for Social Services.
Providing truly adequate sums of money for the National Health Service as a whole to repair the damage of decades of under-financing is at the moment impossible, but within the present constraints and the resources made available to the National Health Service there must continue to be a commitment to a fairer allocation between the different regions. Siren voices have recently tended to suggest that, because their regions have serious deficiencies in

health provision, the recommendations of the Resource Allocation Working Party—RAWP, as it is known—should not be implemented.
No doubt all regions can claim that they need more money, but none can make that claim with greater justice than the Trent Region. When the National Health Service was set up, there was in the South of England better provision for hospital and medical services than in other parts of the country. Therefore successive Governments, of whatever political colour, have had to continue to maintain and improve whatever services existed in each region. But the elimination of the imbalance and injustice between the regions has taken far too long.
Repeatedly, in speeches in the House, in interviews with Ministers and in letters to Ministers, I have in the past 17 years pointed out that the allocation of national resources to the National Health Service in the old Sheffield Region, and later in the Trent Region, was far too low and grossly unfair. For too long the expenditure per head of the population in the Trent Region has been below the national average. This has meant that in the region waiting lists for hospital beds and out-patient appointments have been longer than those in the rest of the country. It has also meant that the number of doctors, specialists, professional and technical staff, nurses, midwives and ancillary staff per 100,000 population has been lower in the region than the national average, and in some cases lower than the lowest figure in the other regions, while general practitioners have the biggest lists of any region.
Bad though the position may be when one compares the Trent Region with the rest of the country, breaking down the figures within the region itself shows a scandalous situation. The further south one goes in the region, the smaller has been the expenditure per head on the National Health Service and the worse the staff position. Cities like Nottingham and Leicester have not had their fair share of the cake even within the region, let alone within the national context. If one takes the fact that the Trent region has always been the Cinderella of the regions, and if one realises that Nottingham and Leicester have had such an unfairly low allocation of what has been


made available in the region, one can see the gross inequalities from which Nottingham and Leicester have suffered for so long.
It follows, therefore, that the Trent Region has always been a seriously deprived region and that within it there are inequalities which are absolutely inexcusable. I am tired of having to point out this fact to successive Governments over the years, and I hope that I shall not receive on this occasion a ministerial dose of bromide which will not be in any way satisfying to the people of the Trent Region.
Massive injections of money into the Trent Region are necessary to correct the imbalance of allocation that has gone on over the years, but I appreciate how difficult it is for the Minister to promise that truly adequate sums of money can be found now. Nevertheless, I hope to hear from him some message of hope for the region in spite of the statement made by the Secretary of State on 21st December, when he said that he could not see that the equalisation of resources between the regions could be achieved in less than 10 years or so.
When I heard that, my heart sank, because in 1972 I was told in the House by a Conservative Minister that the imbalance of regional provision could not be eliminated in under 10 years. Why must the Trent Region in particular be offered jam at some ever-receding time—10 years from the latest ministerial statement—and no jam today or even tomorrow? The long-delayed day of justice for my region must be seen to be much nearer than 10 years away if we are to avoid an ever-increasing bitterness in the region.
The Trent Regional Health Authority has told the Secretary of State that it believes that it cannot meet its obligations to provide more clinical teaching facilities for its expanding medical schools and cope with the severe deprivation of the health services in the region unless the recommendations of the Resource Allocation Working Party are implemented quickly.
The authority has not only given warning to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of the deficiencies which exist within the region but, since so many heart cries have gone up recently about the

difficulties of the London regions, it has given him some comparisons between the situation in the Trent Region and those which obtain in the London regions. The situation in the Trent Region is much worse than in London, bad though it may be in the capital. I was intending to give the House particulars of those comparisons, but I must suppress the desire to have them on record and merely say that they show that what I have said about the Trent Region lagging far behind is absolutely true in every respect. I am sure that my hon. Friend who is to reply knows this perfectly well.
It is evident from the statement made by my right hon. Friend on 21st December that he has not been misled by what I have called the siren voices which have been raised recently suggesting that the recommendations of RAWP should be scrapped. I hope, however, that he has given due consideration to the warning of the Trent Regional Health Authority, despite what he said in his statement about the remoteness of equalisation of resources.
From time to time I have raised in the House the serious deficiencies of the Nottingham hospital service, but I wish to mention one now which has not been raised before. That is the need for a second accident and emergency department in Nottingham. That need, I think, has been acknowledged by regional headquarters, but what is now planned is merely the setting up of an accident and emergency department at the Nottingham University Hospital to replace the present department at the Nottingham General Hospital and the department at the Children's Hospital. This move will involve more inconvenience for the population of the North Nottinghamshire area in getting to the new department because of the difficulties of transport.
Sites allocated for major social, health and community facilities should have good access by all available forms of transport from the catchment areas served. Since a hospital serves a very large population, coming from a far-flung catchment area, it is very important that an accident and emergency department in particular should be readily accessible to public transport.
Taking into account all these considerations, the Nottingham City Hospital site is more suitable for an accident


and emergency department than is the Nottingham University hospital site. I believe, however, that a single accident and emergency department will prove to be inadequate and that it will be quickly demonstrated that there is a need for two departments. I should like to think that there has been an in-depth examination of this very important matter, and I should welcome my hon. Friend's comments on it.
The Trent Region as a whole is not some remote, backward, underdeveloped, underpopulated region. It is an important region of the country, with a great diversity of industry and a population of 5 million. It is nothing less than a positive disgrace that under all Governments it has continued to be an impoverished region from the National Health Service point of view. In fact, it is one of the poorest regions, if not the poorest, in all indices of health care. That is a sad situation. I hope that my hon. Friend will comment on it in a meaningful way today, even though I realise that his Department has many difficulties.

4.15 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Roland Moyle): With the leave of the House, I should like to intervene again to reply to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) whose knowledge and persistence in championing the cause of the Trent Region in general and Nottinghamshire in particular are well known in the House and cannot be too well known in the locality which he represents. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's assiduity in this respect
I should add that my right hon. Friend and myself have recently received a number of representations from the area in support of the view that my hon. Friend has urged on the House this afternoon. These representations on behalf of the Trent Region, and some of those on behalf of other deprived regions, have served to complement, illuminate and supplement the representations that we have received from some other much better provided regions that are already better off under the recommendations of the Resource Allocation Working Party.
These representations have helped to redress rather misleading views which may have been seen in the national Press recently in respect of the less deprived regions. I assure my hon. Friend that no one has urged that the Resource Allocation Working Party approach to the allocation of resources in the National Health Service should be scrapped. I think that the argument is about the pace of implementation rather than whether reallocation should take place.
Before I come on to the health problems of the Trent Region, I can perhaps illuminate a corner of the Nottingham battlefield where, I am afraid, my hon. Friend will have to fight for some time longer. He drew attention to the need for a second accident and emergency department in the city of Nottingham. I am aware that the new accident and emergency department about to be opened on the south side of the city involves a transportation problem across the city from the north side, and that people on the north side of Nottingham are worried about what will happen with regard to the present accident and emergency department at the General Hospital on the south side.
It is, of course, the responsibility of the Nottinghamshire Area Health Authority to determine how many accident and emergency facilities there should be in the area and where they should be. I understand that the area health authority's decision to concentrate the city's accident and emergency services on the University Hospital in 1979 was confirmed by the authority first after full consultation with the community health councils of both north and south Nottingham in November last year. At the same time it was accepted in principle that a second accident and emergency unit should be provided in due course at the City Hospital. This remains the authority's intention.
However, in view of the many other important schemes competing within both the region and the area for the limited capital funds likely to be available, it would be unrealistic to suggest that an early start will be possible for this new second accident and emergency department at the City Hospital. By the time I have described the situation as it is


developing elsewhere in the Trent Region, I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that at least the deprivation of Nottingham in respect of a second accident and emergency unit is not leading to inaction elsewhere.
Turning to the problems of the Trent Region in general, it must be said straight away that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I recognise that the region is deprived and under-resourced compared with most other regions in the country. Patients in the Trent Region have to wait longer than the national average for hospital care. Compared with the national average, the region has fewer beds, sees fewer out-patients and has less hospital manpower and fewer nurses and midwives. What is more, the lists of general medical practitioners in the region are longer than in most other regions of the country. We accept that.
Successive Governments have attempted to solve the problem with no great success because they have been relying on historical factors to guide them. We have now learned from bitter experience that reliance on historical factors means that new resources go to where activity is already the greatest and, therefore, that the disparities tend to be increased rather than diminished if that technique is followed.
Therefore, this Government set up the Resource Allocation Working Party in Order to try to produce a new approach to the reallocation of resources in the National Health Service in the hope that the problems of regions such as the Trent Region and the North-Western Region might be solved.
In September of this year, my right hon. Friend received the report of the RAWP, which, incidentally, comprised not only civil servants from the Department but representatives of health authorities and others and was set up to advise Ministers on the principles and methods for allocating capital and revenue resources to National Health Service authorities.
Last Tuesday, 21st December, my right hon. Friend said that the Government's long-term commitment to a fairer allocation of money between the differing regions of the country would be confirmed and accepted. It is Government policy that there should be a fairer allocation of resources to the Trent Region.

He also said that, having considered the views of the NHS authorities and other interested bodies consulted on the report, he had accepted the recommendations of the RAWP as a basis for distributing resources for the next years ahead.
The new approach in the criteria proposed for judging the health care needs of populations compared with the previous historical approach upon which Governments had been working is the introduction of standardised mortality ratios weighted for age and sex as an indication of morbidity or illness and, therefore, of relative health care needs. The application of these formulae to the population of the Trent Region shows that the region is in greater need of health care than had been indicated hitherto, with the result that the region will continue to receive one of the highest rates of additional funds in real terms for the future.
Again on 21st December, my right hon. Friend announced that, notwithstanding the economic situation, the planned growth of services to patients for the whole National Health Service in real terms had been left intact despite the recent cuts in public expenditure and that, as a result, a deprived region such as the Trent Region would receive an allocation of about 3 per cent. in additional funds for the next financial year. This would compare with the most provided region in the south of the country, such as the North-East or North-West Thames Region, which will be obtaining only about 0·25 per cent. in additional funds for the coming year.
My hon. Friend will see that there is a positive attempt being made to guide such additional funds as are coming into the NHS in the direction of the Trent Region. Obviously an increase of 3 per cent. in additional funds is not a superabundance, but it is one of the highest rates in the country and, in straitened circumstances, probably the best that we can do as a Government.
How has the Trent Region done in recent years? Outside London, of course, the Trent Region is unique in that it contains three medical schools—those at Sheffield, Nottingham and Leicester. Those at Nottingham and Leicester are very new, having been established in 1966 and 1971 respectively.
The decisions to establish new medical schools in the region were based in part on the knowledge that in this way the region as a whole would stand to gain in the long term from the observed tendency of many doctors to make their careers in the region in which they have been trained. Furthermore, it was recognised that the establishment of medical schools in these areas would lead to an improvement of the hospital services there generally as the capital developments necessary to bring the local services up to a standard consistent with the needs of both the community and undergraduate medical teaching came on stream and additional medical and other staff required were recruited.
In addition to the normal allocations, the Department has made available to the regional authority additional funds specially necessary for the upgrading of existing hospitals in both cities and in anticipation of medical teaching generally.
Phase one of the new University Teaching Hospital at Nottingham is due for completion next summer. A start on phase two has already begun, and by the time this magnificent new 1,000-bed hospital is completed some £33½ million will have been invested in its construction. This excludes any addition that may be made to meet inflation.
In addition to the new University Hospital in Nottingham, the region's capital programme in recent years makes fairly impressive reading. There is new district general hospital provision either in whole or in part in Barnsley, Boston, Doncaster and Rotherham, and a new teaching hospital—the Hallamshire—in Sheffield, as well as other major hospital developments in Derby and Leicester, in close association with the new medical school.
Earlier this year my right hon. Friend gave approval to the Trent Regional Health Authority's capital programme for this year, which included phase one of the long-awaited district general hospital at Chesterfield, of which the estimated total cost, excluding land, will be about £12·2 million at today's prices. There will be a new accident and emergency department costing £2 million and a new mental illness unit costing almost £2 million

at the new Northern General Hospital in Sheffield.
There is also the new ward block, as I am sure my hon. Friend has noticed, at the Nottingham City Hospital. This is a scheme the merits of which have been urged on successive Health Ministers by my hon. Friend on behalf of Nottingham. He has waged a very effective campaign over a number of years, and I am glad to be the Health Minister who tells him that work on the new ward block started in November this year.

Mr. Whitlock: I appreciate very much all that my hon. Friend is saying, but in fact he is pointing out that we are only now receiving some of the backlog due to us to make up for the neglect of the past. We have a long way to go to get equalisation.

Mr. Moyle: Indeed. All I am saying is that at last we have begun the process of catching up. There is a long way to go before the Trent Region begins to compare, in terms of resources, with some other parts of the country. This year £66 per head of population is being spent on health care in the Trent Region, compared with an average of about £86 in some parts of London and the South. The Trent Regional Health Authority's capital programme for this year also includes phase one of the replacement of the boiler plant at the City and Sherwood Hospital, Nottingham.
In addition to the various capital provisions, we are of course making an effort to ensure that joint funding takes place. This is a technique whereby the health authorities will provide capital contributions to local authorities setting up provision for social services in their area which also look after people. Although the joint financing by the Trent Regional Health Authority in the current financial year is only about £¾ million, it is due to grow in the next three years to about £2·5 million.
It is not just a question of buildings. There is also the question of manpower. For example, although the approval of my Department is necessary for the establishment of new posts in hospital services, we are giving very high priority to achieving a fairer distribution of medical manpower. The population of the Trent Region is less than 10 per cent. of the population of England and Wales, but


the region as a whole has been given 15 per cent. of all new consultant posts over the last four years. Trent did even better with nearly 20 per cent. of the approvals in radiology and more than 25 per cent. of those in anaesthetics.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North will consider this statement of the Government's policy and that, having considered the information I have given him, he will agree that, although Trent Region has a long way to go before it has a health service comparable to that in London and the South, things are beginning to move in the right direction. We welcome this prodding by him from time to time until the targets are achieved.

OLDCHURCH, HOSPITAL ROMFORD

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Michael Neubert: Christmas is, by welcome tradition, a time of good cheer, family reunions and renewal of old friendships. But for some people this Christmas, like previous Christmases, will be an unhappy time—a time of anxiety and even a tragic occasion. Among those people will be patients in hospital and particularly patients in neurosurgical units such as the one at Old-church Hospital, Romford.
Among those already in the unit, and those who may be admitted as emergencies during the Christmas holiday, are casualties of horrifying accidents, on icy roads and victims, of all ages, of brain tumours which are indicated by memory failure or the loss of limbs. For these people and their families, Christmas is a miserable time, and the existence of the neurosurgical unit is their only hope for survival. Therefore, the concern expressed by the public at the possibility of the closure of the neurosurgical unit at Old-church Hospital can be easily understood.
The anxiety arises from the publication of draft proposals in the regional health plan, which is a strategic plan. Although, judging from the extracts that I have seen, that document in both original and revised form is not one of the utmost clarity, the threat to this unit is undoubted. The threat was confirmed by the regional medical officer in a letter he sent to me at the end of October.
I appreciate the opportunity to raise this most important matter on behalf of my constituents and others. As coincidence would have it, it was my good fortune to be able to speak in an Adjournment debate on the eve of the Summer Recess. I spoke about the River Roding improvement scheme, which would prevent flooding—against which even last summer's record-breaking drought was no defence. There was a co-operative and vigorous response from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Approval was given to the appropriate grant, the contract has been let, and work has started. Therefore I look to the Minister this afternoon for an equally encouraging reply to my representations on this subject.
It seems strange to many people that there should be any question that such a fine neurosurgical unit as the one at Oldchurch Hospital should be closed now or at any time in the future. There has been a neurosurgical service at the hospital for about 30 years. For most of the time neurosurgical patients were distributed throughout the general wards, and that still happens in the case of children. Such an arrangement is not ideal for patients or for others in the wards, because the Presence of extremely ill patients is bad for morale.
The unit's service to the community can be measured in terms of 600 to 700 admissions annually. The need for the service is therefore established with absolute certainty. What appears to be behind the proposals for the possible closure of the unit is the financial limitation set upon the National Health Service, which is manifesting itself in this direction and in others.
There has been a review of all the neurological and neurosurgical services of the region and of the need for such services to be combined into a number of smaller units. This has been prompted by an agreed DHSS norm of 25 neurosurgical beds per million of the population. In the North-East Thames Region, within which my constituency falls and which extends from East Ham in London to the Essex coast—so that I am speaking not for my constituents alone, but for people in places as far apart as Chelmsford, Colchester and Southend—there are 41·9 beds per million of population,


though that figure, given to me in a Written Answer, does not necessarily take account of the demand on the region's services by the North-West Thames Region.
We have here an established unit, and the proposal may be to retain units with at least 60 beds. The neurosurgical unit at Oldchurch would certainly qualify on that criterion because it has 50 beds with 10 supporting neurosurgical beds.
It is astonishing that there could be any question of such a unit being in danger of closure, but there are difficulties, to which I shall refer later, which may complicate the issue.
There is a proposal that the existing units at the London and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals in London should be expanded. The London has 50 beds, St. Bart's has 30 beds, and Oldchurch has 50 beds. If there is an established demand for beds it can be met, on present figures, only by a substantial expansion of facilities in London teaching hospitals.
But these hospitals are already in difficulties, as is known from reports in the Press and elsewhere. Not all wards are functioning, and there is a crisis in finance. It would seem the utmost folly to embark on such a reorganisation when the hospitals already face enormous difficulties.
Special factors affecting the neurosurgical unit at Oldchurch are not entirely those of finance; they also stem from a shortage of skilled staff, particularly neuroradiologists. This is a reflection of a general national problem, as I am advised that there are 70 vacancies for consultant radiologists in general and, as neuroradiologists have to spend a further year or two in training and receive no increased remuneration for undertaking this work, the problem with them is even more acute.
This has resulted in Oldchurch never having had a permanent neuroradiologist. It is hoped that if the future of the unit and the necessary finance can be assured, better facilities can be made available at the hospital, including the provision of an ENI scanner, the supply of which is committed to the financial year 1977–78. These better facilities would attract people of the necessary calibre.
There is also a problem with neuropathologists, but I make no reference to that except to say that no appointments of consultant neuropathologists were made in England or Wales last year, though I do not know what that determines.
There is also a problem with junior staff which relates, in part, to their preference to stay with their teaching hospitals. If it is not unique, it is certainly unusual for a neurosurgical unit to be provided outside a university centre. Apart from two examples in Germany, in Europe it is apparently unknown. It is therefore something of a pacemaker project that there should be a neurosurgical service at Oldchurch at all, only half an hour's drive from the London hospitals.
There is the important question of nursing support for the service. Although Bart's has a one to one ratio in its nursing staff in this service, at Oldchurch the ratio of nurses to patients is one to 1·9, which is only half as good. This relates to historical funding of the nursing establishment for the service, and it should be remedied. In this service there is a high dependency by patients on their nurses. Some patients need as many as three nurses, because they are on the very edge of life and death, and every palpitation is a small achievement.
All these problems will be aggravated in the immediate future by the EEC directive which allows skilled staff in the medical service to go abroad much more easily. This is particularly pressing in neuroradiology because only a minimum amount of a foreign language is required for such people. They are not in daily conversation with patients on anything other than rudimentary matters, and they are very much attracted by the higher salaries and better conditions of work.
In my considered view it would be a calamity for this unit to close. The debate on the closure will take place in the next six months. The regional hospital authority has decided that the decision must be reached by the end of June next year, and I am determined that this should be a matter for full public debate and not something that is decided in the rarified atmosphere of medical politics or the back rooms of hospital administration. The public is very concerned about this matter.
If the closure were to proceed there would be four elements in that calamity. First, the closure would be a waste of public money. The unit is in purpose-built premises which were re-established in 1973 at a cost of £181,000. It is probably double that value now. There would be a great loss of public assets if the purpose of the unit were changed. At present, each bed has an oxygen suction pipe leading to it, designed for the purposes of the unit. If that purpose is changed, the result must involve a loss of taxpayers' money.
Secondly, there is the consideration of the current policy of dispersal of resources. If resources were concentrated in central London it would run counter to the proposals of the Resource Allocation Working Party Report. In the North-East Thames Region, the main distribution of resources is from the centre of London out to Essex, and Romford, which is about mid-way between the two, would benefit to the tune of £2 million on the present proposals. This would go a long way towards meeting the shortcomings of the neurological service.
Thirdly, the closure of the unit could be very inconvenient for some patients and their families. Romford is very easy to approach both by road and rail. There would be perhaps a very small number of cases—I do not want to exaggerate this—which could be adversely affected by the extra time taken to bring them into London for neurological treatment. Some injuries are so critical that every minute counts. The number of deaths that might be caused by the extra time might not be more than one a year, but I would think that that factor alone would lie on most people's consciences.
Fourthly, the closure would mean the break-up of a skilled team, consisting of the consultant neurosurgeon, Mr. Fair-bairn, and other skilled staff. I am indebted to Mrs. Temple, who is head of the area social services team in my constituency, who pointed out the relevant points from Gaius Petronius, who was adviser to Nero in AD68. He said:
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be reorganised. We tend to meet any new situation by reorganising and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.

That is most appropriate to devolution, local government reorganisation and the reorganisation of local health services.
I therefore make a plea to the Minister to use his influence with the authorities responsible for these decisions in order to ensure that they think most carefully. They then may well decide to leave well alone—indeed, to give renewed support to this unit so that it may continue to give to the community the vital service it has provided in the last 30 years.

4.45 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins): I should like to thank the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) for raising this topic and for the way in which he has done so, ending with that delightful quotation which will serve many other purposes in debates. The debate is of great importance to his constituents and to other people in the region, including some of my constituents who are within the same regional area. The debate gives me a chance to say something also about our efforts to bring a coherent pattern to the Health Service.
Following the reorganisation of 1974, a reorganisation devised by the previous Administration, one positive benefit is being developed. That is the emergence of a co-ordinated planning system. This was introduced in April this year and is intended to encourage the maximum devolution of responsibility for deciding the future patterns of service to those who provide the services, within guidelines set down by my Department. Its aim is to ensue the most effective use of resources locally for the benefit of those who use the service. The system operates at both strategic and operational levels.
The first set of strategic plans identifying general priorities for the development of services in the medium and longer term—that is, 10 to 15 years—will be submitted to my Department by each region in January 1977. These will reflect and coment on the Department's view of priorities as set out in the consultative document "Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England". Strategic plans will be fully revised every four years, but at first more frequent revision will be needed until the planning system has become fully effective, and in any event they will


be reviewed annually to consider whether particular aspects may need to be modified in the light of the shorter-term operational plans, new policy developments and changed resource assumptions.
Shorter-term operational plans, containing the specific proposals for each of three years ahead, are prepared at health district level. The area health authorities will incorporate the district plans in their operational plan. Regions will submit annual planning reports to the Department on expected progress towards achievement of agreed strategies and will take account of these operational plans.
What we are seeing now is the emergence of these first strategic plans. There should be consultation on both strategic and operational plans with a wide range of interests, and when the system is operating fully there should generally have been ample opportunity for consideration of developing ideas by all those with an interest before they become firm proposals for the first year of the operational plan.
The North-East Thames Region has issued its first draft strategic plan for consultation to advisory committees. Following the meeting of the authority on Monday 20th December, the plan, with some slight alterations, will be issued more widely for consultation. I shall be returning to the content of that plan later in my speech.
The 1972 White Paper on NHS reorganisation in England recognised the need to establish special co-ordination machinery for London. The London Co-ordinating Committee was established early in 1975 and consists of officers who represent the various health, academic and local authorities in London. Its terms of reference are
To co-ordinate the provision of health services in Greater London with reference to the matching of medical education and service needs and securing a rational distribution of specialised health services".
At a subsequent meeting of the committee in June 1975, it was agreed that a working group should be set up to consider the scope for rationalisation of services for cardiological and neurological medicine and surgery in London. The working group was chaired by an officer

of my Department and its membership comprised representatives of the Department, the four Thames regional health authorities, the National Heart and Chest Hospital and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. The representative from the North-East Thames Regional Health Authority was also a consultant neurologist at the London Hospital.
The final report of the working group was approved by the London Coordinating Committee on 25th May 1976 and on 5th August 1976 it was issued to the four Thames regional health authorities, which were asked to take account of the recommendations in the report when framing their operational and strategic plans for the services in question.
Before telling the House something of the report of that working group set up by the London Co-ordinating Committee and the recommendations it made in respect of nerology and neurosurgery, I should explain a little about these specialities.
Neurology and neurosurgery facilities are mutually dependent upon each other. The neurologist, having made a diagnosis, often needs the assistance of the special surgical skills of the neurosurgeon. Many patients who undergo neurosurgery will have been investigated by a neurologist and many more will return to a neurologist's care when surgery has been completed. Both neurologist and neurosurgeon require the help of others—for example, in radiology and pathology—who have specialised in the diseases of the brain and spinal cord.
A very wide range of highly specialised skills must therefore be brought together, and these skilled people should be supported by a wide range of expensive and rapidly developing diagnostic tools like the EMI scanner. Such diagnostic tools are expensive; the EMI scanner alone will cost at least £200,000. For the foreseeable future, it would be quite impossible to provide these facilities in each district or even each area. Patients' needs are best served by being transported to hospitals where skilled personnel and advanced technology can be concentrated.
The Royal College of Physicians has recommended that neurology and neurosurgery should be provided in unified departments. The minimum population served by such a unit should be between


1 million and 1·5 million wtih a maximum of 2·3 million. The North-East Thames Region has a population of about 3·7 million. At least 30 neurology beds per million population are required, and neurosurgical beds are also required to be provided on the scale of 30 per million population. A minimum of 60 neurology/ neurosurgery beds in a unit is necessary for efficient working and justifies supporting services—for example, neuroradiology and neuropathology.
The working group recommended, as a basis for further planning, that three centres should serve the North-East Thames Region, plus centres at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases and the Hospital for Sick Children. The working group also expected that districts will require the support of consultative advice in neurology, but with any further neurological beds that regions consider it necessary to identify provided on a sub-regional, not a district, basis, backed by neurosurgery and neurology, established together in a small number of regional centres.
In particular, with reference to North-East Thames the report said:
The south-east sector of the North-East Thames region is served by three units—St. Bartholomew's London and Oldchurch. The RHA should examine the possibility of concentrating major neurosurgery on two centres. It is understood that Oldchurch is difficult to staff and therefore, despite the fact that this would repereseent a less than ideal geographical solution, it may be that St. Bartholomew's and the London should be the centres.
In the north-west sector of the North-East Thames region services are based on the Whittington and University College Hospitals, which also serve the North-West Thames region. The possibility of providing services at one centre should be examined.
It is this report which has aroused so much feeling in the hon. Member's constituency. I must emphasise again that this is a recommendation made by a group of experts and it is within the Department's guidelines.
Let us examine the recommendations again. The report simply says that the regional health authority should examine the possibility of concentrating major nuerosurgery on two centres in one sector and one centre at the other; it does not specify the centres. It does, however, point out that if Oldchurch is difficult to staff, it may be better, despite the geographical

difficulties for patients in Essex, for all the neurosurgical centres to be sited in London. However, the hon. Member has pointed out that there are other factors which can be taken into account.
Now let me return to the North-East Thames Regional Health Authority's strategic plan. This plan has not yet been submitted to my Department. However, copies of the first draft strategic plan were issued for consultation to various advisory committess within the region. No doubt the hon. Member is aware of the content of that plan. The plan contained an edited report of the North-East Thames Region's own strategic planning group on the definition and future consideration of regional specialties.
That strategic planning group also made recommendations. If I may, I will quote them:
The evidence suggests that there are too many, widely scattered, often under-used and small units of neurology and neurosurgery beds providing too many in-patient beds, even taking into account the commitment to North-West Thames patients. We recommend the centralisation of these services into no more than three Regional Units, one in each teaching area and one at Oldchurch Hospital. The representative from City and East London wishes to be dissociated from this recommendation. In the opinion of the remainder of the group, the service to patients will most conveniently be provided in this way and the location of the units in the teaching areas will depend on the economies of the provision which is needed, taken in conjunction with advisory committee recommendations.
Those recommendations were made to the regional health authority, but they are not firm proposals.
On Monday 20th December the North-East Thames Regional Health Authority had a meeting to consider its draft regional strategic plan. At that meeting I am told it was agreed that the draft regional strategic plan, with preliminary amendments, should be issued widely for consultation within areas within the region. Consultations, I am told, are to continue until March next year on any aspects of the plan, while a considerable number of specific points will be open to consultation until June 1977. The location of the neurology and neurosurgical units is included in those points. In other words, the regional health authority does not expect to be in a position to make a firm proposal about neurology and neurosurgery before June 1977.
The draft regional strategic plan with preliminary amendments contained the following statement of regional policy:
Neurology and neurosurgery. The regional policy is that these specialities should be considered and planned together. Planning considerations suggest a need in neurosurgery for some 180 beds: clinical considerations suggest that units of some 60 beds are the most practical. In those circumstances, one of those units should be in the western sector of the region, the other two in the eastern.
In the western sector, two sites are possible for the one unit proposed: the Whittington Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital.
In the eastern sector, three sites are possible for the two units proposed: St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Oldchurch Hospital and the London Hospital.
The regional health authority is aware of the difficulty of the decisions involved in this matter. It considers therefore that discussions should take place with all those concerned, and in the light of those discussions will make the necessary decisions by June 1977.
The regional authorities are right to consider the best and most economical use of their precious resources. But I must repeat that no firm proposal has yet been made while discussions are still to be completed. Further, no firm proposal will be implemented without full discussions with local interests, including advisory committees and community health councils, as laid down by my Department. There will no doubt be a full public debate.
The major contribution made by Oldchurch is widely recognised, but I am told that an additional problem there derives from an acute national shortage of the specialised skills required, particularly in neuroradiology. The concern of everyone is to make the best possible use of the extremely scarce and highly skilled clinical resources available and provide a high quality service.
Should, finally, a proposal be made to close the Oldchurch unit and that proposal be opposed by the local community health council, then, and only then, will my Department be involved, when the Secretary of State will be required to make a decision.
In general, responsibility for determining the closure or change of use of health buildings rests with the appropriate area health authority, provided that the local community health council

is in agreement. Where there is general local agreement, it should be possible to effect a closure or change of use within a period of six months.
If, having discussed informally a particular closure or change of use with the interested organisations, an area health authority considered such a measure would be beneficial, it would have to institute formal consultations. In this event the procedures require the authority to prepare a consultative document covering a variety of matters, to put that document to the public and to invite comments. Hon. Members whose constituents were affected would also be informed of the proposals.
The area health authority would then seek the community health council's views on the comments it received and on its own observations on those comments. The authority would then review its original proposals in the light of the comments received and, unless there were strong local opposition, it could then implement its original proposals provided that the community health council agreed. The regional health authority and my department would be informed of the decision.
However, if the community health council objects to the authority's proposals, it is required to submit to the authority a constructive and detailed counter-proposal. The matter must then be referred to the regional health authority and, if the regional health authority is unable to accept the views of the council and wishes to proceed with the closure or change of use, it falls to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to act as arbiter. Nothing I say today should therefore be construed as prejudging the issue.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): I should like to take this opportunity of expressing to this rather select Sitting my good wishes to the whole House for Christmas and the New Year.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Five o'clock till Monday 10th January, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.